New Work – 6
Songrim Martial Arts Academy, Wuhan.
Not everyone had to become a Taoist or a monk to learn martial arts. Commoners had another path: pay a monthly tuition to a martial academy and pick up some simple techniques.
The academies taught relatively rudimentary arts, which was precisely why well-off families sometimes paid the fee and sent their sons there — not so much for the training as to keep the boys from lazing about all day.
“Has everyone read Storm Chivalric Hero, volume two?”
Of course, they were hardly the sort of sons who refrained from goofing off.
“It was so good I couldn’t get my head straight.”
“Same here. When I heard they were calling it a lecher-removing edition, I worried it’d be like playing chess without the knight and rook — but it turned out to be pure fun.”
These days the hottest topic among the academy’s young students was Storm Chivalric Hero. A novel about a man who takes a sword as his compass, shelters a woman in danger in his arms, and smashes villains to pieces left a fire in the hearts of young men that refused to go out.
“I thought a hero so firm in his convictions would be suffocating to read, but his boldness made me respect him all the more.”
“Well, he is carrying on the legacy of the previous sect leader. A would-be knight-errant with a righteous cause has no reason to hesitate.”
“When Unhyeon reached out his hand to Lady Jin Soyu without a moment’s doubt, my nose actually stung!”
One of the young men stretched his hand out toward an imaginary Jin Soyu, as if he himself were Unhyeon.
“I shouted with joy at the part where he gains his enlightenment amid the Four Knots and breaks through his wall, and my mother gave me an earful. What about you?”
One official asked another, who looked the thoughtful sort.
“For me, it was when the old ferryman helped him.”
The thoughtful youth brought up a scene none of his friends had expected.
“You mean the old man who appeared when Unhyeon needed to cross the river but no one would help him, all too terrified of the martial artists?”
“Yes. The murim folk are blinded by famous swords or just stand and watch, but an ordinary boatman risks his life to help. It got me thinking.”
“A true man of righteousness amid all those thugs.”
“Wasn’t that Hopil showing us that chivalry can be practiced through small acts? It gave me much to ponder.”
“Indeed! So that scene carried such meaning!”
What is a knight-errant? A book that’s fun makes you read it over and over; reading it over and over makes you ponder the meaning hidden within.
The academy’s students, training forgotten, chattered on and on about Storm Chivalric Hero.
“What in blazes do you lot think you’re doing!”
Naturally, someone disapproved of the spectacle.
“Academy Master!”
At the arrival of the Master of Songrim Martial Arts Academy, the students snapped to attention, tension written all over them.
“Very good, very good indeed! I tell you to train your martial arts, and instead you sit around gossiping over some trash novel!”
The problem with students who merely paid tuition was their lack of drive. The master scowled and glared at them.
“It is not trash! It is the new work of Master Hopil, containing the tale of a true knight-errant.”
“Hopil? Isn’t he that notorious romance-writer everyone’s been talking about? And here you are reading filth right under my nose?”
The master’s scowl deepened further.
“Storm Chivalric Hero is not filth. It shows any true martial artist the path we must walk, the direction we must go—”
“Enough! Just some scribbler who knows nothing of how the murim works, no doubt.”
“Read it and you’ll change your mind!”
“He’s right!”
“Please, just read it once!”
When their beloved novel came under fire, the students swarmed around the master, defending Storm Chivalric Hero from all sides.
“I have no intention of reading it. Confiscated. I’ll be sending letters to your parents, so brace yourselves.”
“Yes, sir…….”
The master reprimanded the instructor for letting his students run wild, made sure they were dutifully drilling with wooden swords, and returned to his office.
“What could possibly be so entertaining about a book like this.”
He muttered to himself as he set the confiscated volume on his desk.
He didn’t show it, but he was a little surprised. Students who normally scattered at a single word from him had acted in unison.
Their parents needed to hear of this. And to write to the parents, he needed to know what was in the book.
He didn’t believe a word the students had said, but he opened Storm Chivalric Hero all the same.
“Sales of Storm Chivalric Hero are climbing.”
Thanks to Lim Hayeon and Jegal Hyang’s help, I’d carved out time to write — but I couldn’t pour every hour into the manuscript. Jegal Hyang avoided meeting people, and Lim Hayeon could only move in the dead of night.
Which meant visiting the shops fell to me.
“Word of mouth seems to be spreading. Women are buying it, and armed martial artists too.”
One of Daseogak’s managers reported on the current situation.
“That’s a relief.”
Even with Daseogak advertising it heavily and trading on Hopil’s name, I couldn’t help worrying.
Unhyeon is a protagonist who wants to become a knight-errant, which could easily make him seem even more frustrating than Dang Jeong of Dangga Pungun.
Throwing him into relentless crises and having him overcome them sometimes with flair, sometimes with cleverness, seemed to have done the trick.
“Manager Kang, there’s something I should mention.”
The manager spoke to me with careful deference.
“Is there a problem?”
“I think you’ll need to place an order with the Yichang Printing Workshop for more copies of Dangga Pungun.”
“Dangga Pungun, not Storm Chivalric Hero?”
“Now that Storm Chivalric Hero is popular, word about Dangga Pungun has spread even further. The new book is doing well, but it’s no match for Dangga Pungun.”
Figures.
I didn’t want to show it, but I couldn’t quite suppress the bitter smile. As an author, watching my ambitious new work get outsold by my old one stung.
Not that I hadn’t seen it coming.
Lim Hayeon and Jegal Hyang had both offered that advice, and I’d shaken my head.
Storm Chivalric Hero is the story of the wuxia world I longed for back in my hardest days.
A novel written in a poor village, brush in hand, while I raged at the heavens — why is this world wuxia at all? — painting the wuxia I’d imagined.
My life was better than it had been two years ago, but I had no intention of changing what Storm Chivalric Hero stood for.
Besides, this was a novel meant to shore up the legend of the Shadowless Divine Thief, so I’d resolved to give the promotion my all but keep my pride where it counted.
“I’ll send a separate letter to Yichang.”
“Manager Kang!”
“What is it?”
“You need to come down to the first floor, right away!”
Why was he calling me down with that startled look? I went downstairs with the employee.
“Are you the manager here?”
A middle-aged martial artist?
His clothes were neat, so he didn’t look like a man come to make trouble, and the guards hired from Mangeum Hall didn’t seem to be on alert either.
What was this about?
“A martial artist, I see. I’m Manager Kang. May I ask what brings you to Daseogak?”
“I am Im-mo, master of Songrim Martial Arts Academy. I wish to purchase multiple copies of Storm Chivalric Hero, and being refused, I sought out the manager.”
“Storm Chivalric Hero is limited to two copies per person.”
“That’s a problem. I can hardly stand in that long line every day. Could I not buy a few dozen at once?”
“May I ask what for?”
He surely wasn’t planning to resell Storm Chivalric Hero out of a martial academy. Merchants occasionally begged for bulk purchases, claiming they’d sell them on our behalf; we’d been turning them down, saying that even pumping out Daseogak’s regular stock was a strain.
“I want to buy books as educational material for the boys at my academy.”
“I’m sorry?”
“A truly remarkable novel. I believe having them read this book once does more good than my lecturing a thousand times about a martial artist’s mindset.”
“You intend to use this book for education?”
I stared at the academy master in astonishment.
In this world, there is no knight-errant who reaches out to the weak without weighing profit and loss.
There is no swordsman who draws his blade for someone in trouble without caring the color of their hair.
This world is not the wuxia I knew. That is why I wrote Storm Chivalric Hero.
Hoping that someone, anyone, might read it and be moved, even a little.
And now, when someone appears and asks—
“May I purchase it as an educational book?”
I had no reason to refuse.
The back-to-back successes of Dangga Pungun and Storm Chivalric Hero.
Thanks to them, not only the Yichang Daseogak but the Wuhan branch too had grown busy — yet there were some who looked upon this situation with deep displeasure.
“The Wuhan Tea Book Club we built with our own hands now stands in dire peril.”
On the second floor of Wuhan Daseogak, one of the club’s members hunched over as if holding a secret conspiracy meeting.
“Peril? There’s hardly room to set a foot down in this place right now, I’d say.”
Another member glanced around the second floor, packed solid with not a seat to spare.
“That is precisely the problem. How did we build the Wuhan Tea Book Club, eh? Trudging all the way to distant Yichang for every new volume because of Mangeum Hall, wearing our shoes to ribbons, and spending ages gathering kindred spirits.”
Before Wuhan Daseogak existed, the devoted readers of Dangga Pungun had built their club through every hardship imaginable. The spot where the man held forth was filled with the club’s founding members.
“Let us not forget how many times we made the pilgrimage to Yichang — praying for Manager Kang’s safe return and the safe publication of Dangga Pungun volume three.”
These were members who had rallied back when Dangga Pungun was banned from sale in Wuhan; their passion, at least, commanded respect.
“Quite so. And yet, look at that spectacle.”
One club member cast a sour glance at a table where women sat together.
“Unnie, are you writing a reading report too?”
“Of course. I’m going to win that volume-one scroll of Storm Chivalric Hero.”
“You have a writing tutor, so maybe you have a chance. What are you aiming for?”
“The child-Unhyeon scroll from volume one. I want it.”
“Oh my! Unnie, that was your type all along?!”
“It’s not like that……. It just awakens my protective instincts, that’s all.”
“Hoho. Those are the same thing, you know.”
“A heartwarming sight, that.”
One club member stroked his beard as he watched the beauties chattering away.
“What? Heartwarming? Look at those pitiful creatures, neglecting literary analysis to fawn over scraps of illustration.”
“And yet haven’t you been revising your own reading report for half a month now, all for that scroll?”
“Th-that’s different! I write mine to earn the recognition of Master Hopil! Those girls care more about the offering than the rite, I tell you!”
“Doesn’t seem that way to me…….”
“Saying that to fellow club members who weathered hard days together?”
“When new water flows in, you have to accept it. I heard the Yichang club takes everyone without discrimination.”
“Accept any old water and soon the whole pond turns to muddy roil.”
“If anything around here is turning to muddy roil, it’s this pond, which has nothing but men in it.”
At that remark, the other club members nodded along.
“I miss the days of constructive discussion. The days when we formally proclaimed that Du Eunghyang, Hubei’s foremost courtesan, was the true wife in Dangga Pungun, and all else heresy.”
“Hold on, this is the first I’m hearing of that? Who decided the true wife on their own authority!”
Damn. One slip and the proclaimed true wife might be overturned by force of a snatch-and-grab. Sensing the danger, the member swiftly changed the subject.
“A-anyway, this Storm Chivalric Hero is also a problem. It’s entertaining, sure, but it seems Master Hopil has taken a reckless gamble compared to Dangga Pungun.”
The visibly disgruntled member pointed at the volume in his hand — blissfully unaware that he might be the reckless gamble he spoke of.
“Are you insulting Master Hopil right now?”
The members’ faces darkened in an instant.
“I always knew you’d cross the line and betray us one day.”
“Has the day finally come to apply the Yichang-style agitator-pulverization method?”
“I learned it from Scholar Hwang of Yichang. Everyone, rise. Prepare yourselves.”
The club members glared at him as if they would dismember the agitator limb from limb on the spot.
“N-not, n-n-n-not that! I meant to discuss the problem of a character called the Shadowless Divine Thief! A reckless gamble Master Hopil made for the sake of sales!”
The disgruntled member blurted it out in a panic.
“You mean the righteous thief?”
“A hypocritical scoundrel with no intention of honest work, who covets other people’s property, dividing wealth among the poor? Where in the world does such nonsense exist?”
“Does it not? I seem to recall hearing that far off in the northeast of Hubei, bands of brigands were pulling much the same trick, and giving the magistrates terrible headaches. Wouldn’t that make it possible in reality?”
“Ha! My friend, you know one thing and not the other. Brigands do indeed behave that way. But a thief is different.”
The grumbling member curled one corner of his mouth.
“Brigands can do it, but a thief can’t? What manner of logic is that?”
“Consider a band of brigands settling into a mountain fortress. To keep landslides at bay, they plant trees, pave roads, sort out the rocks — and collect a toll for passage. And then, is that the end of their Greenwood duties?”
“What more is there to do if you mean to collect tolls?”
“If the brigands want to drink wine, embrace women, and gather food for the fortress, don’t they have to get chummy with the villagers nearby? So they court favor with the locals, doing a few decent deeds here and there to win them over. What you heard was surely one of those stories, inflated with every retelling.”
“That doesn’t sound quite right. From what I heard—”
“Enough. In any case, brigand bands may be so, but a lone thief is another beast entirely. A thief works alone by nature — he has no need of any of that. And to think meticulous, detail-faithful Master Hopil would throw out such a reckless gamble. Tsk tsk.”
Things were more fun in the days of Dangga Pungun.
How could these newcomers wandering into Daseogak after reading Storm Chivalric Hero be called true devotees of Hopil? And why would Master Hopil write Storm Chivalric Hero just to welcome such drifters?
The man vented his grievances in a critique of Storm Chivalric Hero.
“Robbing an infamous rich man and sharing it with the poor. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a thief really existed?”
“That’s exactly why Master Hopil made him up! A thief possible only in imagination, conjured for the sake of sales. Tsk tsk.”
“No, actually—”
“Everyone!”
Just as another member was about to get a word in, one of the Wuhan Tea Book Club burst hurriedly through the second-floor door.
“What is it?”
“Have you all heard the news?!”
On the face of the man who had rushed in, an expression of sheer disbelief was unmistakable.
“What news?”
“L-last night!”
“Last night?”
“The Phantom Thief — the Shadowless Divine Thief — has appeared!”