Unexpected Encounter - 8
“I would gladly heed Young Hero Cheon-un’s request, but is it truly fitting for a mere scribbler of words to listen to a martial hero’s troubles?”
Better to take a step back at the start. I offered a faint smile and met Young Hero Cheon-un’s troubled gaze head-on.
Hearing your worries makes me just another outsider. I can be a good listener for your sake, but I might fall short of whatever you expect. Still, if you want to speak, I’ll listen.
“It is a dilemma concerning righteousness. If not Author Hopil, who else would hear me out?”
That kind of worry? I thought I was going to have to dig out Kang Yunho the Love Doctor’s failure notebook.
“In that case, I will gladly listen with full attention.”
Young Hero Cheon-un stared at me for a long moment before opening her mouth.
“Gongja Kang, how did you come to love the way of the heroes?”
Starting with a question right out of the gate. This seems serious, so I’d better answer properly.
“When I was young I heard many tales of the Central Plains’ heroes and grew fond of them. Then my circumstances left me with not a single soul to rely on, living as a barbarian in the Central Plains, and I began to yearn desperately for even one person who might reach out a hand. That is why my admiration for heroes only deepened.”
Why is there no one willing to extend a hand to a black-haired barbarian like me? Where is the martial world I once imagined? I scooped up a teaspoon of that old bitterness and mixed it into my words.
“Much like myself. Bandits took my parents, and I nearly died as well until my master saved me.”
“Your master must have been a true hero, then.”
“Yes. A truly admirable person. The day I was saved, I begged to follow him. He said my bones and sinews were excellent, yet he could not take me into Wudang. I threw an enormous tantrum.”
“I find it hard to picture Young Hero Cheon-un throwing a tantrum.”
I spoke with a light laugh.
“It shames me still. But the tantrum worked. My master pulled some strings and I was able to become a disciple of the Wudang Sect. Thanks to that I trained while admiring heroes, and I stepped into the world determined to become one myself.”
“So it has been your dream since childhood.”
Truly the makings of a pure-blooded hero.
“Yet once I entered the world, reality proved very different from my imaginings.”
“In what way?”
“There were those who took advantage of goodwill.”
Young Hero Cheon-un spoke with a bitter edge, recounting several incidents. How a small village had first been overflowing with gratitude, yet after she handled a few more matters they began treating her like hired help. Or how people had goaded her into “righteous deeds” that were really just means to private gain.
“Some people take a kind act and decide it is their rightful due.”
In those cases you ought to shout “Hoy!” and administer some stern re-education, but it is never that easy.
Young Hero Cheon-un nodded and poured out the various incidents and doubts she had faced during her recent acts of chivalry.
“What is the right thing to do? Is this even something I am allowed to do? I resolved to become a hero, yet I am ashamed of how much I hesitate.”
She gazed into the campfire, her face heavy with anguish.
Not an easy dilemma at all.
Even people in social welfare work often confess that helping the vulnerable drives them into misanthropy. How much more so for Young Hero Cheon-un, a sword-bearing hero?
Helping family or close friends is one thing, but risking your life and drawing your blade for complete strangers demands a level of self-sacrifice I can barely measure.
I wanted to tell her to look at the people she had saved, yet when negative experiences pile up—like that pickpocket incident—doubts about the path of chivalry are inevitable.
What am I supposed to say at a time like this? Is there anything I can offer?
As a devoted reader of martial arts novels, I do have something to say.
As a martial arts fan and as a novelist, I had words.
“Young Hero Cheon-un. As someone who also admires righteousness, may I offer a single thought?”
“You are the one who writes treatises on the heroic path. I will listen carefully.”
It’s not quite that lofty. I sincerely hope Young Hero Cheon-un reads Dangga Pungun as late as possible.
“I believe the path of chivalry is the process by which a hero forges the blade within their own heart.”
“Forges a blade?”
“Martial arts—what you practice is called mugong, not merely martial technique or martial art. I think that is because it is not simply the skill of swinging the sword in your hand, but the study of placing a blade inside your chest.”
In martial arts stories, the character for martial is always mugong. The reason Taoists and monks cultivate it as well as swordsmen is that mugong is also muhak—martial learning. Because it is learning, the blade in the heart is not mere technique; it is swung in union with the Dao.
“A blade within the heart…”
“Depending on what will is poured into that blade, it becomes orthodox, heretical, or demonic. The blade in Young Hero Cheon-un’s heart has surely grown properly—nourished by admiration for heroes and the teachings of Wudang. But is that blade complete?”
“It is incomplete.”
“Yes. It is upright, yet unfinished. Just as a sword grows stronger under countless hammer blows, the blade in your heart is perfected only after being shaken countless times.”
Everything I had seen in countless martial arts novels. A hero is incomplete as a hero, and their martial arts are incomplete as well. That is why, in those stories, heroes advance inwardly through their acts of chivalry. No matter how many hardships bend them, so long as they do not break, the blade grows firm.
“When Gongja Kang wrote of heroes, did you also waver as I do?”
Young Hero Cheon-un asked with a face that seemed to plead for an answer.
“Until I finished writing Dangga Pungun, the tip of my brush was battered by the world thousands upon tens of thousands of times. Yet the dream of the hero inside my heart never once wavered.”
I compromised with the world, sure. But I never abandoned the dream of writing martial arts novels. And the dream I refused to drop finally spread its wings across the world.
“It shakes, yet it does not shake.”
Young Hero Cheon-un murmured as if turning my words over in her mouth.
“If you do not let the blade within your heart snap, it will only grow harder and sharper. I myself was saved by Young Hero Cheon-un. So if you continue forward even while you doubt…”
“One blade changes once, then a thousand times, yet never reaches ten thousand changes.”
Before I could finish, Young Hero Cheon-un muttered something that sounded like a martial formula.
“Pardon?”
“Therefore one must go out into the world to complete it. In order to reach the ten thousand changes…”
“Young Hero Cheon-un?”
Why is her face suddenly growing distant?
“A single unshaken sword.”
Young Hero Cheon-un abruptly settled into the lotus position.
Huh?
Is this… enlightenment?
Enlightenment.
In terms of martial cultivation stages, it is basically a level-up.
Like when you grind an exam subject you thought was pure memorization until suddenly you see the underlying flow. Or when you only ever spam the national combo in a game and finally understand why you use that combo, letting you deal damage far more fluidly.
Martial arts do not level up just by punching a straw dummy for four weeks straight; at certain stages this kind of realization is essential.
“Congratulations on your Great Achievement.”
I spoke to Young Hero Cheon-un the moment she opened her eyes with the morning sun. The other warriors had offered to stand guard and told me to sleep, but I could not miss the achievement of delivering the first line in an event I had only ever read about in novels.
“Not a Great Achievement—merely a Minor one.”
Young Hero Cheon-un smiled with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had attained something, and answered me.
“Is that so.”
My words did not produce quite that much effect. A little disappointing.
“However, I obtained a great clue toward the Great Achievement.”
“That is truly fortunate.”
A clue is still a clue.
“Therefore… I wish to offer my benefactor a formal expression of gratitude.”
After sitting cross-legged for so long she was unsteady on her feet; she rose shakily and looked at me.
“Pardon?”
“Cheon-un of the Wudang Sect offers courtesy to her benefactor.”
Young Hero Cheon-un bowed deeply to me.
“Please rise.”
Why make this so heavy?
“I will rise once my benefactor accepts.”
Accepting was easy enough, but a better idea had already sparked.
“Young Hero Cheon-un. Now that each of us has received grace from the other, rather than calling one another benefactor, what if we addressed each other in a different way?”
“A different way?”
She partially lifted her body and looked at me.
I bent my knees as she had and bowed in return.
“The author of Dangga Pungun, Kang Yunho, offers a request to the benefactor who saved his life. Would you become this Kang Yunho’s friend?”
A chance to be friends with a true hero. I am not missing this.
“Uh… haha.”
Young Hero Cheon-un stared at me, looking somewhat flustered.
“Will you?”
I raised myself a little so our eyes met at the same height.
“How could I possibly refuse?”
Young Hero Cheon-un answered with a full, bright smile.
Young Hero Cheon-un’s face had grown noticeably lighter. After walking another day and a half we reached the branch office of the Sichuan Dang Clan that was our goal.
“I must take my leave now.”
She spoke while watching the busy figures of the Medical Pavilion people.
“Young Hero Cheon-un, you said you would repay the favor by going to the Sichuan Dang Clan. Why not come with us?”
“I have already received the Grace-and-Resentment Token; that is enough. Resolving the affairs of my sect is urgent, so I must go.”
“You mentioned heading to Mount Changbai, correct?”
“Yes. I plan to follow the Yangtze toward the Yellow Sea and then head north along the coast.”
“If it is a matter of your sect, there is little choice.”
A shame, but it seems our journey with Young Hero Cheon-un ends here.
“Once everything is finished I will visit Daseogak.”
“Haha. You must come by at least once. I will let you read any book you like free of charge.”
“Then at that time I will finally read Dangga Pungun. By then the third volume will have been published, no?”
Couldn’t she just… not read it?
“Of course.”
“I have learned a great deal from Gongja Kang. I pray Young Lady Hwarin recovers swiftly. I will take my leave now.”
“And I hope Young Hero Cheon-un achieves everything she sets out to do.”
Young Hero Cheon-un bid farewell to everyone and headed back the way we had come.
I hope she never abandons her heart for righteousness and keeps moving forward. Then I can swagger in front of the Daseogak members and casually mention that the hero is my friend.
I stayed watching the direction she had vanished until even the top of Young Hero Cheon-un’s head disappeared from sight, already looking forward to the day we would meet again.
Through the Sichuan branch, then on to Chengdu where the main Sichuan Dang Clan stood.
The journey had been long, but at last we arrived. Entering the clan itself, however, proved far from simple.
“Wait outside until word comes from within.”
So this is the Sichuan Dang Clan? Before I could even feel awe, a warrior who looked every bit a high-level expert blocked the Medical Pavilion party.
What is this nonsense?
“Outer Hall Master! What do you mean? We already sent word that every moment is critical!”
The news about Hwarin had been delivered in advance. The Outer Hall Master was a high-ranking post that oversaw the clan’s martial forces. And he was barring our way?
“I cannot disclose the reason.”
“How long must we wait?”
“Indefinitely.”
“We must enter at once!”
“I cannot permit entry.”
The Medical Pavilion members pleaded earnestly, but the Outer Hall Master remained unmoved. I was going out of my mind.
“Gongja Kang?”
We had no time to waste here. I gently pushed past a Medical Pavilion member and addressed the man called Outer Hall Master.
“You are the Outer Hall Master?”
“I am. Who are you, brat?”
They really did write almost nothing about me, huh.
Until the moment we set out I had truly not wanted to come. Who would have thought I would be eager to walk into the tiger’s den myself? But every second counted. To save Hwarin I had to get inside quickly.
Time for the finishing move.
Steeling myself, I faced the Outer Hall Master with a boldly confident expression and opened my mouth.
“Deliver this message to the Dang Clan Leader! Twenty-odd years ago—the woman he loved, Hyang-a. Tell him that Hyang-a’s son has arrived at the Sichuan Dang Clan!”