A Modest Investment (2)
A short way beyond snow-laden Mogwon, in the outer woods, there lay a natural training ground where no one could intrude—the ideal place to cultivate the martial arts without a single watching eye. Before we returned to the main manor, Seol-ha and I were better off spending a good stretch of time there.
"How far have you come with the Cold Lake Hidden Seclusion Art?"
The Cold Lake Hidden Seclusion Art was an art Seol-ha had reinvented, taking the inherited technique of the Hansu Clan—the Water Armor Art—and reshaping it into something aggressive.
"Honestly?"
"Yes."
"After I took your words to heart and abandoned the training method I had chosen for faster progress, unstable as it was, it was only natural that my advancement slowed. I am at a standstill."
Seol-ha's face fell.
Hearing that, I was grateful for two things. She had listened when I told her not to rush, and had changed her training at once. And even after she met the wall that change brought down on her, she had not resented me. She had simply waited for whatever I would say next.
"Good."
"Why? I have to grow stronger..."
"I know. You want to become so strong that no one would dare harm me. That's it, isn't it?"
"......"
"I understand the feeling well enough. But you can't shield me from every danger in the world, so don't cling to a goal that can never be made perfect. I'm not telling you to become a burden, either."
Seol-ha bristled.
"I have never once been a burden to you, young master. And I never will be."
"You already are. The discomfort in your body started the moment you chose that path of rapid advancement. Didn't it?"
As I took a step closer, Seol-ha reflexively drew back half a step. Before she could retreat any farther, I caught her left shoulder.
"The left shoulder is only the beginning. With your balance scattered and your qi forced past its limits, in the end you won't even be able to hold a sword properly."
"How do you..."
"Did you think I wouldn't notice, just because you kept hiding it? That isn't for my sake. And it certainly isn't for yours."
This was her wall. The Water Armor Art had never been an inherited art, passed down across long ages for the sake of harming others. She had forced it into a technique built for swift, continuous combinations, and the limit of that distortion was beginning to swallow her. With talent like hers, she could not have failed to know. She had simply turned her face from it in her haste.
"As of today, discard the Cold Lake Hidden Seclusion Art. Until now, I was only giving you time to feel the wall for yourself."
"Is there another path for me?"
"There is. I'll teach you a different ice art. A superior art with offensive power to spare—more than enough to fill what the Water Armor Art lacks. More than that, the strengths of the Water Armor Art will only make this art stronger."
The Water Armor Art possessed a remarkable advantage. Its qi was slow to project and slow to circulate, but the true qi, once in motion, did not scatter easily. It was heavy, and it was stable.
"All this time you threw away the Water Armor Art's strengths and chased only aggressive progress, so your true qi grew ever more unstable. But if you choose a balanced form of attack that weaves those strengths back in, you can quench that thirst of yours."
An art I had already conceived, even before my regression. The hidden supreme art of the North Sea Ice Palace—the one Hyeonheumbyeongma, who had laid the palace to waste, had in the end failed to steal. A supreme art whose very existence the Palace Master had not known until Hyeonheumbyeongma appeared, and one steeped in the insights left behind by the palace's first master.
The hidden supreme art of the North Sea Ice Palace, steeped in the insights of its first Palace Master.
"The true qi of the Water Armor Art is heavy. Because the qi moves slowly, the more you try to unfold it through forms full of rapid combinations, the slower your progress seems. But heavy does not necessarily mean weak, or slow."
At my words, Seol-ha's eyes lit as if something had dawned on her. Just then snow began to fall again between us, scattering on the wind. I pointed to the snow piled at our feet, crunching underfoot.
"Snow that has accumulated does not shift easily. It stacks, layer upon layer. But the moment a strong wind rises and shakes its center—"
The snow caught upon my sword swept roaring to one side, like an avalanche down a snowbound mountain.
"—it collapses in the direction you want. What matters is the direction of the wind, and the precise control of force."
Not a chain of rapid combinations. Accumulate. Endure. Then pour it forth toward the direction and the place you choose.
This supreme art, which I had created from the essence of the Ice White Snow Wind Art and the Water Armor Art, would open a new path for her.
"I call this supreme art the Ice White Black Tortoise Art. Learn well the forms of the Black Tortoise Immovable Steps and the Ice White Black Tortoise Sword, which will be unfolded upon it."
It was a supreme art of my own reinvention, and yet even I could not yet say clearly what walls she might strike in interpreting it, or how far she might grow. One thing, however, was certain. Once she had gained a fair measure of attainment in it, my sister would reach the level I had held before my regression—and at an age far younger than I had been.
Because—
"Why aren't you asking how I come to know a supreme art like this?"
At the question that had suddenly occurred to me, Seol-ha answered, her gaze gone calm.
"I have thought about it. How I ought to treat you, young master, when so much of you has changed..."
"You would have. And?"
"Just because so many of those changes can neither be explained, nor something I can simply grow used to, it makes no sense that my resolve toward you—or my heart—should change because of it. Whether you explain, or you don't, I..."
Seol-ha gripped her sword tight.
I had expected as much, and still I marveled at her all over again. And it ached, how quickly I had lost, in the life before, someone who held such blind trust and faith in me.
Yes. This time would be different.
I thought of Cheon Yu-wol, who had turned that thin, cold smile on me.
Thank you, my lord. This life, I'll see that I enjoy it properly.
"All right. Let's begin."
Our shadows sank away between snow that drove down ever harder.
A fortnight later, we returned to the manor. The time had certainly been short, but the fruits of training were more than the days could account for. With no eyes upon us, I had freely guided her training, and I myself had chosen an art suited to my newly remade heavenly constitution and begun to temper it.
Now that I had completed the Second Act of the Great Law—
I had no idea what level Cheon Yu-wol had reached by now. But judging from the things she and I had spoken of in the past, at this moment I had come about as far as the tips of her toes. Set beside the man I had been before my regression, when I first stood before her, this was already a realm beyond the heavens—and in all of Golden Manor, only two remained who could threaten me.
Perhaps that was why Seol-ha, though she scarcely let it show, always seemed quietly elated within. A great light of hope had begun to pour over a future that had always been dark. She could hardly help being glad enough to embrace it.
"Look at this bastard. Face is glowing. What, did you go meet some famous courtesan?"
I had washed up and come out in fine spirits. The moment I stepped out, though, a guest waiting for me—brimming with discontent—dragged my mood straight down.
"Why come running in person to pick a fight with someone who's only just come home after so long?"
Geon-pyeong, who had been standing before a bronze mirror tending his hair, spoke while watching my reflection in the glass.
"You. Why'd you get so big?"
A question I had more or less expected. I had been a strapping child to begin with, and even when I was young my height had been unusual for my age. Young as I was, my build had been close enough to Geon Ah-seong's that I had been able to pass myself off as him. But now, with the Third Act of the Great Law underway, I was no longer merely tall. I had easily surpassed Geon-pyeong, all six feet of him. I had shot up by more than a foot.
He had no choice but to stare at me, his face crowded with every kind of suspicion and doubt. Rather than explain myself as if making excuses, I beamed at him.
"Curious? Too bad. I don't feel like telling you."
Geon-pyeong's expression hardened.
"Did you eat something rotten? Talking back to your big brother wasn't enough, and now you're provoking me outright? Get a little courtesy from the adults and you forget who your elder brother is?"
He closed on me in a single rush and bared a vicious killing intent, as if he might slap me across the face at any moment. I would rather he had drawn his blade. Brothers cutting each other down could, in some cases, pass for an unavoidable accident. The moment that heated fighting spirit flared, I closed my mouth.
Should I kill him now?
I weighed it for a moment. Then, into the silence where I waited, came a voice colored with disappointment.
"Can't get a single word out, cowering like a rat, so what were you running your mouth for?"
"Me? I wasn't."
He was free to misunderstand.
"Why don't you just draw? It's been a while. Let's have a proper match."
Even at the provocation, Geon-pyeong laughed with perfect ease.
"Forget it. Thrashing a day-old pup like you would only waste my time. Don't waste it. Sit down a moment. I won't even ask what trick you used to get that big."
At his unexpectedly calm manner, I regretted it, but I sat all the same. In any case, taking Geon-pyeong's head was already set for a time not far off.
"So. What is it?"
"That favor you begged of your brother before—I'm thinking I might grant it now. How about it?"
What favor?
At a time like this, silence was the wiser course. When I said nothing, Geon-pyeong, as if itching with impatience, resolved the question for me with ridiculous ease.
"You said you wanted to attend the regular meeting of the Sichuan Dragon and Phoenix Gathering. You were burning up because you couldn't even get an invitation, weren't you?"
Ah. Now I remembered.
From where I stood it was utterly useless, and yet not something I could simply ignore: the Sichuan Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, a private assembly of Sichuan's rising talents. Somewhere in a very old memory, there had been a time when I, too, had wanted to stand among those glittering figures.
"Didn't you say I wasn't qualified? Why is it suddenly all right now?"
"Your big brother pulled a few strings."
A sudden kindness. Knowing Geon-pyeong's nature, that was impossible. The children of the Great Madam had always been the same. Watching him grin and work that cunning tongue, I could roughly guess what he meant to do to me through the gathering. Most likely he intended to lure me into causing an incident that would reach the Great Madam's ears, or to arrange a situation in which disgrace would come crashing down on me.
But why go to the trouble?
Hmm. Don't tell me the Great Madam scolded him over that previous deal?
Connecting his behavior to what had come before, the picture roughly came together. As expected, the Great Madam knew how to see through a situation. She would never learn what lay buried at Mogwon, though, so she must have thought I had made that deal for Seol-ha's sake alone.
In any case, from where I stood, it was not a bad situation. The more Geon-pyeong burned with hostility toward me, the more solid a pretext I would have to shake what was his and take it. Like this opportunity.
"Perfect timing. I was getting restless anyway. So the chance has finally come for every beautiful woman at the Sichuan Dragon and Phoenix Gathering to have her eyes on me?"
When I played along, Geon-pyeong smirked. Through my mind, though, flashed all manner of things I knew about the gathering.
The Sichuan Dragon and Phoenix Gathering...
By now, that one was likely to be there as well. It was a sudden proposal from Geon-pyeong, but for me the timing of the move was rather fitting.
Geon-pyeong. So you can be of use after all.
"Ha ha ha ha ha!!!"
As if answering my laughter, Geon-pyeong laughed even louder.
"Kuhahahaha!!!"
The same bed. Different dreams.