The Art of Harmonious Blending
The guy who got blown away in a single strike rolled across the ground before finally coming to a halt. His eyes were open, but only the whites were showing.
As expected of the Hundred Medicine Fist Secrets. Its performance is guaranteed.
I immediately turned my gaze to the remaining two.
These two couldn't even be compared to the thugs I had dealt with back in Gaeun Village. Those guys were just ordinary people who knew how to throw a punch, but the two standing before me were proper martial artists.
However, their realm didn't seem particularly high. At best, they were probably second-class martial artists who had only tasted a tiny bit of inner qi. Seeing how they immediately took defensive stances to counter my attacks the moment I sent their friend flying only confirmed my suspicion.
"You took one down already?"
With those words, Seonwoo Seol leaped over the wall and landed without making a single sound. As expected of the Little Heavenly Demon, her movements were so silent she could easily pass as an assassin.
Having already assessed the situation, Seonwoo Seol kicked off the ground. She lunged forward with instantaneous speed so extreme that even my dynamic visual acuity struggled to keep up.
"S-Shifted Shape, Exchanged Position!"
"A-A master!"
Well, if it looks that fast to me, it must look like a god-like realm to you guys.
"Real Shifted Shape, Exchanged Position is way faster than this!"
She wasn't wrong. Technically, the movement Seonwoo Seol had just shown wasn't actually the legendary technique, but as she shouted, she threw her punch.
Boom!
With a sharp rupture that sounded like the air itself was tearing apart, another guy went flying.
"Aaaargh!"
Just as a sonic boom occurs when a fighter jet breaks the sound barrier, Seonwoo Seol's fist, which surpassed normal speeds, produced a similar phenomenon.
If nothing else, her sheer speed boasted a destructive power on par with the Third Stage of the Hundred Medicine Fist Secrets.
The last remaining thug's eyes went wide at the fistfight that had unfolded in the blink of an eye.
"I-I do not know which great master you are, but...!"
"You don't need to know for the rest of your life!"
Seonwoo Seol soared into the air. Spinning her body mid-air, she drove her fist straight down.
It was like a mortar shell slamming into the ground; a massive shockwave rippled outward, nearly reaching where I stood.
Thuuud!
"Keu-aaack!"
Whoa, is he dead? Unlike the other guy she had sent flying, she had slammed this one straight into the dirt. I couldn't help but click my tongue at the sight of the last man flattened like a pancake.
He probably wasn't dead, but he had definitely sustained some permanent physical damage.
"Was that the Demonic Thunder Divine Fist?"
I asked, wondering if it was the signature martial art that Seonwoo Seol's father, Seonwoo Dan, had frequently used back when he was the Little Heavenly Demon. Seonwoo Seol nodded.
"You didn't hear any thunder, right? It's because my realm is still too low, but when else would I get to use it?"
Seonwoo Seol shrugged nonchalantly.
It was a terrifying fist technique said to make thunder echo across the heavens with every single swing. Rumor had it that anyone who took a direct hit from the Demonic Thunder Divine Fist would wet themselves on the spot.
Either way, the reason she was the Little Heavenly Demon was vividly displayed right before my eyes. Three men lay sprawled on the ground, so thoroughly suppressed that they couldn't even squeeze out a groan. It was a brutally violent outcome.
I caught sight of one of the fallen men's calves, which bore a crude tattoo. At a glance, it looked like two axes crossing in an X shape. Hmm, two axes?
"More importantly, we should help that waiter up."
"Ah, right."
I immediately rushed over to help the waiter, Gye-yeong, to his feet. But the moment I grabbed his wrist, I felt something strange in his qi and blood circulation. It was incredibly faint. Like someone on the verge of death... No, wait, he really is dying!
I hoisted Gye-yeong onto my back and carried him straight inside the house. Laying him down on the floor, I took his pulse once more.
Seeing me suddenly take the waiter's pulse, Seonwoo Seol asked,
"Is something wrong?"
"His qi is too weak. It looks like he took a few hits and one of his acupoints got completely blocked..."
For a young man his age, the qi flowing through his acupoints should be rushing like a mountain valley after a heavy rain. Right now, it was weaker than a drying stream.
"Oh dear... Should I go get some acupuncture needles?"
"No, I'll handle it first."
The meridians are pathways. Qi moves through these pathways across the entire body, granting strength. But right now, his pathways were practically collapsed from the external impact. With nowhere to go, the qi was completely blocked. Though a tiny amount was leaking through a minuscule gap, even that wouldn't last long.
The problem lay in finding exactly where the blockage was. An ordinary physician would have used medicine and acupuncture to reinforce the qi and force it through. But we didn't have that kind of time. If I tried that now, this poor waiter might end up serving bowls of carbonara in the afterlife.
"Whew..."
I took a deep breath and placed my hand over Gye-yeong's heart. If I could just channel my qi into his body, I could locate the blocked acupoint. While this would be an incredibly difficult task for an ordinary physician, it was well within my capabilities since I had mastered the martial arts of the Medicine Immortal. Closing my eyes, I slowly began to channel qi near Gye-yeong's heart. The heart is where the fundamental life force inherent to all humans—the primordial energy—is stored.
"Ugh, uuuugh..."
"Bear with it for just a moment."
Gye-yeong groaned involuntarily. Having someone else's qi sweep through your body probably felt like ants crawling along your meridians. It must have felt like hell, but it was still a lot better than actually dying.
"Found it!"
Fortunately, I managed to locate the spot. The blockage was in an acupoint near his ear, which had turned a bright, swollen red. Gathering qi in my right hand, I lightly tapped the acupoint. Gye-yeong gasped in shock.
"Ah-huff!"
With the blocked acupoint instantly cleared, he seemed to regain his senses. Gye-yeong looked around in confusion before his eyes landed on Seonwoo Seol and me.
"W-Who are you?"
"The saviors of your life who beat up the guys thrashing you and cleared your blocked meridians?"
As I said that, I subtly gestured to Seonwoo Seol standing behind me. The faint trace of distrust that had lingered on his face vanished in an instant. Ah, this filthy Zhongyuan. Even here, lookism is alive and well. Maybe I should master the Bone-Shrinking Art and change my face too.
"We won't harm you, so you can just rest easy."
"T-Thank you!"
At Seonwoo Seol's words, Gye-yeong tried to sit up, but I firmly pressed him back down. Tell him to stay still, and he immediately tries to move. As he kept trying to rise, I gripped his shoulders tightly and glared at him. Whimpering like a kicked puppy, Gye-yeong finally gave up and lay flat.
"B-But how did the two of you find me?"
"You used to work at the Seongrok Tea House, right?"
"That's correct. I worked there as a waiter for about three years..."
"Have you ever heard of a guy named Geum Ho?"
"If it's Geum Ho... do you mean that incredibly rude chef?"
"Pfft."
Seonwoo Seol burst out laughing at Gye-yeong's unexpected delivery of cold, hard facts. Oh, Geum Ho, Geum Ho. Just how did you live your life for even a tea house waiter to badmouth you like this?
"He visited the tea house recently, didn't he?"
"Yes. He came in saying he was waiting for someone and ordered just a single cup of tea, then sat there forever. My boss wouldn't stop grumbling about it."
"Do you happen to know who he was waiting for?"
"I don't know who the person was, but I think I saw his face. He definitely wasn't someone from around here."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I saw him clearly with my own two eyes!"
If the Joseon dynasty had its human CCTV in the form of loyal servants, the Zhongyuan had Gye-yeong the waiter. Since he claimed to have seen him clearly with his own eyes, I had to believe him.
"Young master, is there anyone in the academy who is good at drawing?"
"Ah, to draw a wanted portrait?"
As expected, she caught on instantly. Just as drawing a portrait to track down a suspect is called a montage in the modern world, it was known as a wanted portrait in the Zhongyuan.
"There are a few students and assistant instructors in the Northern Pavilion who are quite skilled in calligraphy and painting."
"Then let's bring this fellow into the academy."
"Huh? T-The academy? You mean the Mutual Righteousness Academy?"
Gye-yeong stared at me with bewildered eyes as his destination was decided without his input.
"If you stay here, those big thugs will just come back, won't they?"
"I-I know that, but just anyone can't enter the academy, can they?"
"I can make it happen."
"Pardon? W-Who exactly are you?"
"Me? The Inner and Outer Hall Master."
"Whaaaaaat?!"
Hearing such an unexpected title, Gye-yeong gasped in shock even while lying down. A Hall Master of the academy was certainly a high enough position to warrant such a reaction. Ah, so this is why people abuse authority. This feeling is so sweet my teeth are practically rotting. It's absolutely amazing.
"Thank you, Head Chef!"
Those were the words Gye-yeong had spoken while kneeling before me the evening before last.
Using my authority as the Inner and Outer Hall Master, I had placed the former waiter Gye-yeong into a servant position at the Inner Dining Hall.
A waiter who had worked at a high-end tea house would surely be quick-witted and diligent, and he wouldn't behave rudely toward the academy's residents. He was the perfect candidate.
However, there was one suspicious detail. While Gye-yeong was resting and stabilizing his qi inside his house, the three thugs we had beaten to a pulp had vanished without a trace.
Three guys who had been thoroughly thrashed by us managed to escape without making a sound? That was highly suspicious.
After putting our heads together, Seonwoo Seol and I concluded that they must have had accomplices nearby who didn't dare approach after witnessing our martial prowess. They probably grabbed their fallen comrades and ran for their lives the moment we stepped inside the house.
I couldn't just leave Gye-yeong abandoned in such a situation. Since those thugs with the axe tattoos might return at any moment to beat him up again, keeping him under the academy's protection while he worked seemed like the best course of action.
I wanted to immediately plaster wanted portraits of the unidentified man who met Geum Ho all over Poeun and hunt him down like a rat, but I couldn't. Why? Because as the Inner and Outer Hall Master, I was insanely busy.
The person sitting right in front of me and the thick scroll of documents on the table were major contributors to my current workload.
"Well, Chef Yoon. What do you think?"
The person was none other than Cheongjo. He unrolled the scroll he had placed on the table. Written inside was, of course, the lecture plan he had requested earlier.
At first, I thought it wasn't a scroll but some new weapon developed by the Wudang Sect. Its thickness was on par with a log that had grown on Mount Wudang for a hundred years.
The contents inside were even more spectacular. I skimmed through a tiny portion, and it was written in a style so incredibly archaic and tedious that my eyelids instantly grew heavy, threatening to make me snore.
No wonder his course evaluations are in the gutter when he writes his lecture plans like this. Too lazy to read through every single word, I answered honestly.
"I am sure you poured your heart and soul into writing this, Instructor Cheongjo, but I believe it would be much better to hear a brief, clear explanation directly from your own mouth."
Grandpa Cheongjo, please explain it to me. Scratch, scratch.
When I set the scroll aside and looked at him with sparkling eyes, Cheongjo let out a hearty laugh and nodded.
"Hahaha, Muryangsubul. If you wish to hear my explanation directly, then I suppose I have no choice. This poor Taoist cannot help but bring up the Year of Gapsul, when I first took charge of a lecture. That year was one where countless geniuses enrolled. In particular, the greatest talent of that year was a child from our Wudang Sect named Zhang Gan. Currently, he is retracing the footsteps of our sect's founder and the pillar of the martial world, Grandmaster Zhang Sanfeng, striving tirelessly to earn the title of Wudang's Number One Sword. Among the disciples of the Zhang generation, there is none who trains as fiercely as he..."
I was screwed. This was bringing back vivid memories of listening to a school principal's morning address. It felt like the man sitting before me wasn't a Wudang Elder, but a retired Major League Baseball player famous for his endless rambling.
Maybe reading the scroll word by word would have been better after all. To summarize Cheongjo's mind-numbing, neck-snappingly long speech, the core message was this:
'Use the culinary culture you know to explain the profound principles applicable to all martial arts through cooking, and let the students enjoy the food prepared in the process.'
That was it. Seriously, why did he have to bring up his disciple Zhang Gan and the Wudang founder Grandmaster Zhang Sanfeng for something that could be explained in a single sentence? I couldn't understand it, but since I had already agreed to this, I had no choice but to grit my teeth and bear it. Sob.
"Chef Yoon, would next week's lecture be acceptable to you?"
"Am I allowed to choose the dish myself?"
"Muryangsubul. As long as it is a dish that can be prepared and eaten within two hours, any dish is fine."
"Then, may I explain it based on Wudang's martial arts?"
"Of course. But how much do you know about Wudang's martial arts, Chef Yoon?"
"Uh, about as much as Tai Chi?"
There were indeed other techniques, like the Dual Extremes Divine Art, which allowed one to execute different martial arts with each hand, the Five Elements Sword containing the secrets of the five elements, and the Taiqing Sword Art, which only the future pillars of Wudang were permitted to learn. But those were Wudang's secret arts, and I had only ever heard of their names. The most accessible concept I could work with was Tai Chi, which was known to everyone, young and old alike.
"The Taiji is indeed a profound principle that cannot be separated from our Wudang. From Tai Chi, which even a young child can learn, to the Taiji Wisdom Sword, which we pride as our greatest swordplay, the profound truth of the Taiji resides in them all. In fact, explaining the Taiji alongside culinary culture would be wonderful."
Cheongjo replied with a pleased expression. Indeed, the Taiji was one of the core principles representing Wudang. Besides, it was incredibly familiar to Koreans, since the 'Taegeuk' on the Korean flag originated from this very concept. Although Korea didn't exist in the Zhongyuan, wherever I, a Korean, stood was Asgard... no, Korea.
But how do I connect the Taiji with cooking?
"I suppose the essence of the Taiji is best shown through the concept of 'grafting a flower onto a tree'?"
"In a broad sense, yes. There are countless martial arts that utilize this method of redirecting an opponent's incoming force to strike back. However, redirecting force is not the only important aspect of the Taiji."
"Then what is?"
"The Taiji is about 'harmonious blending.'"
"Harmonious blending?"
"Now, look at this."
Cheongjo pointed to the teacup he was drinking from. Inside, the tea was half-empty.
"The teacup represents the vast world, and the water is the origin of all creation. And the tea leaf floating in the center is 'me.'"
Cheongjo pointed to a single, slender tea leaf. As he brought his hand close to the cup, gentle ripples formed on the surface of the tea. Then, it began to spin slowly. A miniature vortex was forming inside the teacup.
"All of creation is in constant motion. I, too, am bound to be swept up in it."
Stop. At some point, the vortex ceased, and the tea leaf came to a sudden halt.
"The tea leaf has been steeped in the water. Just as I am steeped in all of creation."
"..."
"But conversely, all of creation is also influenced by me. Just like the tea that has seeped out from the leaf."
With those words, Cheongjo pointed to the pale yellow tea. Then, he took a sip.
"This is harmonious blending, and this is the Taiji. All of creation and I influence each other, blending together, and the result is this savory and delicious tea."
Living and tangling with one another in a world as small as a teacup. Was that what the Taiji truly meant? It was an explanation—and a koan—that gave me much to think about.
"You truly are an Elder of the Wudang Sect."
I bowed respectfully to Cheongjo with a serious expression. A master of his craft was truly on another level.
"Hahaha! I am merely an old man who loves tea."
Cheongjo bowed his head slightly with a humble smile.
Harmonious blending, huh? What dish best represents harmonious blending?
"...Ah."
The dish most familiar to us, and the one that perfectly embodies the concept of harmonious blending. That was the one.