Guanxi
“Neung So!!”
The moment he saw me, my second brother broke into a radiant smile and wrapped me in his arms without hesitation. If I had wanted to, I could have slipped out of his grasp without the slightest difficulty; he was full of openings.
But I could not evade him.
Not because I refused to. Because I could not.
This was the same man who had been burdened with an unjust accusation because of me.
And now, seeing me, he was truly glad to be reunited.
I had never done anything for him.
So why was he welcoming me like this?
“I thought you’d be angry the moment you saw me…”
When I spoke to him, still holding me close, he finally let me go and replied with a laugh.
“You stole the medicinal elixir, and I got scolded by Father in your place—what, do you think I’d hate my only little brother over something like that? In the end, you told Father the truth even though you knew you’d be the one punished for trying to protect me. That was enough. Besides, if you came looking for me like this, then you must have already apologized to Father and come on an errand, right?”
At his words, I slowly shook my head.
“I didn’t go home. I intend to become a cultivator. They said that if I want to enter Hyeondo Sect, I need someone I know here for now. So I thought I’d try using your name.”
At last, the smile vanished from his face, and he continued in a grave voice.
“You’ve been away from home this whole time? Then where in the world have you been? Come to think of it, why is your hair this color? And why are you so thin?”
The steady flood of questions he hurled at me was thick with worry. It was the kind of brotherly affection I had never once felt in my past life, and through him, I could sense even a sliver of it now.
So instead of irritation, I felt a small measure of pleasant warmth, and with a faint smile I answered, “It’s nothing. These are just things that will be fixed once I start cultivating anyway. All you need to do is help me get into Hyeondo Sect.”
But despite my words, he still looked at me seriously and said, “I can help you get a special admission trial with our sect. But before that, tell me what happened to you. If you can’t pass the trial, we’ll have to find another way.”
In truth, I had never once thought of my second brother as reliable.
Yet meeting his eyes, seeing the iron resolve there, made me want to trust him a little.
“After I left home, there was a rogue cultivator who forcibly took me in as his disciple. He intended to use my body to refine something called a Pilryeokdan. I barely escaped his grasp, and in the process, my body was injured. That is all.”
But this time, another voice answered me.
“For rogue cultivators, human sacrifice is hardly a serious matter. There are few ways to raise one’s cultivation so cheaply.”
I did not know how long she had been listening, but the cultivator whom my second brother had called over suddenly appeared behind him.
It was perfect concealment, so flawless that it had not even brushed my spiritual sense. At that moment, I was certain my intuition had been right: she was absolutely not beneath Jin Myeong, that rogue cultivator.
“Master Jeong! That bastard tried to harm my little brother! Can’t our Hyeondo Sect punish him?”
My second brother sounded even angrier than I did, and the woman who seemed to be a senior cultivator replied with an expressionless face, “Do you think Hyeondo Sect would make every rogue cultivator in the world our enemy over the sake of one little brother of yours?”
The meaning behind her words was clear. She was saying that most rogue cultivators really did raise themselves by methods not unlike that.
The misfortune that had threatened my life was, in this world, only a common occurrence.
“What Master says is right. What I need is simply to recover my damaged body and gain the strength to stand against men like that. And Hyeondo Sect can give me that.”
At my words, my second brother clenched his fists, and his mouth opened once more.
“Neung So! I’ll help you become strong! And as for your revenge, you won’t take it alone—you’ll take it with me!”
In truth, Jin Myeong, the target of that vengeance, was already dead by my hand. But even so, just hearing those words made my chest feel steadier, as though he were telling me I was not alone in this world after all.
Smiling, I took my second brother’s hand, and he led me into Hyeondo Sect.
＊＊＊
“You’re Neung Jeon’s younger brother? Hmm. Your innate spiritual root is several times better than Neung Jeon’s. Neung Jeon’s Three Spiritual Roots are considered decent enough, but yours is the highest grade among spiritual roots—the Two Spiritual Roots. I’ll speak well of you to my sect leader, and you can be accepted as a special admission disciple of our Hyeondo Sect. From today onward, you’ll train under my instruction and work in the Shadow Talisman Department.”
At Cheong-ui Seonin’s words—my second brother’s master—I bowed my head. Without even giving me a separate entrance trial, he had judged my aptitude at a glance and allowed me in, and it felt as though he were granting me a considerable privilege.
And whether my thought was right or not, my second brother’s mouth fell open at once as he protested, “Master! Is that really all? Aren’t we going to do something like climbing Jangseon Hall, the trial we had to go through for admission?”
“Your younger brother is a special admission disciple who entered through guanxi, so the judgment and responsibility are entirely mine. With his Two Spiritual Roots, he more than clears my standards. Or are you jealous because your little brother seems to be entering too easily? If that’s the case, I could make him climb Jangseon Hall for three days and nights just as you did.”
At that, my second brother happened to meet my eyes for a moment, and he hurriedly shook his head. “No, Master! I’d be overjoyed if my little brother could simply stay here with me.”
Hearing that, Cheong-ui Seonin looked back at me and continued, “Of course, you may not especially like our Shadow Talisman Department, which makes talismans, but on that matter, you have no choice. I was the one who chose you as a special admission disciple, and the responsibility for that choice is mine alone, so I have no choice but to keep you close.”
I did not know how many paths of study existed within Hyeondo Sect, but fortunately, I liked the Shadow Talisman Department he belonged to. The immortal arts that made impossible things possible were precisely the teachings I wanted most.
Especially the healing talisman Jin Myeong had used, Green Wood Talisman; I intended to learn that one for certain.
“I have also wanted to learn the talisman arts used by cultivators.”
At my words, he gave a snort of laughter and went on, “Whether that is your true feeling remains to be seen. I’m going to meet the sect leader, so in the meantime, Neung Jeon, show your brother to his lodging and tell him what he’ll be doing from now on. Your brother will be using the same east wing building as you.”
My second brother bowed and answered that he understood, then leaned in and whispered to me at once, “From now on, call me Senior Brother Neung. However things were between us in the secular world, here everyone addresses one another by sect position.”
Considering his words and the guanxi culture here, it seemed we were not the only ones in Hyeondo Sect with relatives inside. And indeed, some words related to that were soon flowing from my second brother’s mouth again.
“Brothers like us rarely enter together even when we use guanxi. Spiritual roots, which are the aptitude for cultivation, aren’t all that common. And not every child of a cultivator has spiritual roots, either.”
I had also learned the basics of what spiritual roots were from the rogue cultivator Jin Myeong.
But I still could not discern what sort of spiritual roots another person possessed. My cultivation had not yet reached even the first stage of Qi Refining, after all. I had been diligently consuming the elixirs in the spatial pouch I had taken from Jin Myeong, but because I could not absorb spiritual energy from outside sources—only the spiritual qi gained from elixirs—I had no choice.
Still, I set aside the worries crowding my mind and decided to focus on the rare, warm conversation with my second brother.
“So it’s amusing that such a rare thing happened to us brothers. Is it livable here? That admission trial you mentioned must have been pretty difficult.”
My second brother flashed me a broad smile, squared his shoulders, and replied, “Aside from being hungry all the time because we only eat Bigu Pills every day, everything’s fine. But did I tell you I was the first one to pass the admission trial, climbing Jangseon Hall?”
Thinking back on the fact that the entrance trial had lasted three days and three nights, it was no small feat, no matter how it happened. It was hardly strange that my second brother was so proud of himself.
“Looks like your Three Spiritual Roots are more impressive than I thought. The others must have been lesser, with Four Spiritual Roots or Five Spiritual Roots?”
Yet when he heard me, my second brother gave a very interesting answer.
“Three Spiritual Roots are certainly decent aptitude, but I wasn’t the only one among my fellow entrants with them. There was even that fellow Yang Jeon, who had Two Spiritual Roots.”
“If you weren’t ranked by aptitude, then that just means you did that well?”
At my words, my second brother’s expression grew faintly wistful, and he continued, “I did. Even with the fierce wind making it hard to keep my body steady and the chill of the stone steps seeping into my bones, I kept moving forward and never gave up. In truth, when the girl I like was following behind me, how could I, the one in front, afford to quit?”
So my brother’s determination during the entrance trial had ultimately been because of the daughter of the Baekri family who was behind him.
But instead of nodding along, I found myself with a different question.
The daughter of the Baekri family who had driven him to such effort was, in fact, not here.
“In the end, you never gave up, but So-ae gave up?”
The moment I said it, my second brother hurriedly went on, “It’s not that So-ae gave up because she wanted to. She was badly injured during the trial. I’m sure So-ae will take part in the next admission trial again.”
That sounded very much like wishful thinking on his part, so I merely nodded without a word.
Then, perhaps wanting to change the subject, my second brother quickly added, “You must be hungry, right? Come with me for a moment.”
Was he going to share some of his Bigu Pills with me?
I thought nothing of his words and followed him.
But the thing my second brother pulled out from the corner of the east wing a moment later was rather ridiculous.
“Eat this. I don’t have much left either, but I don’t mind sharing it with you at all.”
An ugly, long sweet potato about the size of three fingers laid together. Rather than taking the sweet potato from my brother’s hand at once, I only stared at it blankly.
Then he placed it directly in my hand.
“I told you, it’s fine. I can get more later. There are surprisingly plenty of ways to make money in the Shadow Talisman Department.”
At that moment, I remembered what the senior cultivator had said when I met her in front of Hyeondo Sect.
That greedy fellow in the Shadow Talisman Department was surely the one with that name.
There was no doubt my second brother had done something to get hold of this sweet potato that did not look especially good to outsiders.
But I was different. The man standing before me was willingly handing over the most precious thing he had, and that made it difficult to look at him badly.
So I accepted the withered, unappetizing sweet potato without hesitation.
“I’ll eat it well, Brother.”
At that, my second brother smiled brightly again and said, “Good. Later I’ll catch a bird and roast that for you too. For now, just have that to tide you over.”
His thoughtfulness was truly appreciated. It felt as though an eternity had passed since I had last felt this sort of emotion.
Then, suddenly, a voice broke through my thoughts.
“I heard there was someone who entered here through guanxi from the mission slip, so I came to see, and you’re already shielding him because he’s someone you know, Neung Jeon.”
A portrait-like beauty, his plain robe fitting him beautifully. If he had not immediately come looking for trouble with me, I would not have had any reason to dislike him either.
But it seemed he was already entangled with my second brother in old enmity.
“What’s the big deal about sharing a bit of food? Why don’t you mind your own business, Yang Jeon?”
Amusingly enough, he shared the same given name as my second brother, differing only in surname.
So while I observed him once more, he looked at me and said, “Someone like you, who builds himself by borrowing the strength of others, cannot remain long on the path of cultivation. Only those who overcome themselves can climb to the summit. If the ability you possess is insufficient, then time will eventually cast you aside. Bu De Mang Do, Zi Xin Wu Mun! A bridge that was not permitted may not be crossed, and if there is no road in your own heart, then know that is also the end.”
The old grudge my second brother had built with him was now being handed to me.
Of course, I was not someone who would quietly endure such words.
“As you say, cultivation is a battle against oneself. But how is it that you ended up coming here to fight us instead of yourself? Seeing you waste your body and mind on meaningless things, I’d say the path you seek to walk is already a road through the night with no lantern in sight. You would do well to wake yourself from that delusion and gather your senses properly. Otherwise, you’ll lose your own Dao forever inside that dream.”
I was a man who had once stood among Shaolin elders whose every other sentence carried the thick scent of ink, and who had spoken of the world with no difficulty at all. To me, the half-baked rhetoric this fellow spat out was nothing.
And yet it seemed I alone thought it was nothing.
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