I Told Her to Chop Firewood, and She Achieved Enlightenment
"Kwahaha! Yes, that's exactly it!"
The moment I stood in the corridor, arched my back, and let out a hearty laugh.
It was the historic instant when my grand and magnificent retirement plan finally took its first bold step forward.
*Grrrrrrumble—*
"……."
"……."
A ferocious rumble of thunder tore through the crisp autumn air of the courtyard.
I had been mid-pose, back bent in an explosion of cool, and I forced my creaking neck bones to move as I slowly turned my head.
In the far corner of the yard.
Soyeon stood frozen like a stone, clutching an enormous arrowroot root—dragged from the crevice of the house-sized boulder she'd just split in two—hugged tight in both arms, the thing nearly as big as her own torso.
Our eyes met across the empty air.
*Whooosh—!*
From her dirt-smudged cheeks to the slender nape of her neck, the girl flushed crimson in an instant, as if someone had set her on fire.
She frantically set down the arrowroot root and pressed both hands against her stomach, head bowed like a condemned prisoner awaiting execution for some great treason, and began to tremble.
"I-I'm sorry……."
"……For what?"
"My stomach…… it keeps making noise……."
Soyeon couldn't bring herself to say another word, and bit down hard on her bloodless lips.
Staring blankly at the sight, I quietly tilted my head back toward the sky.
Autumn sunlight poured down through the gap in the rafters.
The sun had already climbed past the main beam and was crawling furiously toward its zenith.
'Ah…… right.'
Since I'd fed her two boiled potatoes late last night, not a single morsel—not even a drop of water—had made it into her belly.
And all the while, I'd been sitting alone in my room guzzling whole bowls of baseless fantasy: the room's gone cold, Gut-Yin Severing Meridians is an unprecedented cheat constitution in the history of the martial world, she split a boulder bare-handed so I'll raise her into the Greatest Under Heaven and leech off her for life…
While the thought of making breakfast for a twelve-year-old kid had evaporated entirely from my brain.
'You idiot. You've lost your mind.'
Greatest Under Heaven, my ass.
If I left things like this, forget commanding the world—I'd be holding a funeral for my first disciple right there in the courtyard of Cheonhae Gate, cause of death: starvation.
"Yeon-ah."
"Y-yes!"
The moment I called her name, Soyeon snapped her back straight like a coiled spring.
"Put that arrowroot root down and come here."
"B-but there's still a little grass left under that wall over there……"
The girl pointed at the corner of the crumbling earthen wall with a dirt-caked index finger.
Sure enough, a few stubborn thistles were still raising their heads here and there.
"I'll pull the rest and come in! I can really finish them in no time!"
"Forget it. That's enough."
"But still, Master, you told me to cast away all distractions and clear the grounds so not a single root remains……"
"We're eating. Come on."
"……Pardon?"
Soyeon's big eyes went round enough to pop out of her head.
"Food."
I jabbed my chin toward her stomach.
"You said you were hungry. Your belly just thundered."
"N-no, I'm not!"
The answer shot out reflexively, without a shred of hesitation.
Soyeon shook her head furiously, pale as death.
"I'm not hungry at all! Really! Hunger like this…… I can hold out easily until dinnertime!"
*Grrrrrrumble— grrumble.*
"……."
"……."
The moment the lie left her mouth, her honest organ wailed twice as loud as before.
Soyeon's face crumpled completely, on the verge of tears spilling from her big eyes at any moment.
"……I'm sorry. My stomach keeps disobeying me……."
"Hey, what's there to be sorry about for being hungry?"
"Well……"
The girl fidgeted, scuffing the toe of her straw sandal against the dirt for a long moment.
Then she murmured in a voice so faint and trembling it seemed to crawl into the ground.
"I…… ate a lot yesterday evening, so……"
"Two potatoes?"
"Yes……"
"And that counts as eating a lot?"
"For me…… it was the fullest I've ever been in my whole life……"
My words caught in my throat, as if someone had stuffed a wad of cotton down it.
I looked the girl over in silence.
Gaunt wrists that looked like they'd snap in a light breeze, hollowed cheeks, collarbones jutting out from under her rough hemp clothes.
The first thing she'd said after escaping the agony of the Gut-Yin Severing Meridians at dawn was that she could work in the fields now. And even after shattering a boulder weighing thousands of pounds bare-handed, she'd stood there shaking, pulling weeds, desperate to prove her meal was earned—terrified of being thrown out.
'……Whew. This damned household.'
Whether I raised the Greatest Under Heaven and lived off her, or scammed my way into building a sect—
what needed fixing first, before any of those rosy dreams, was now crystal clear.
"Soyeon."
"Yes……"
"Stand up straight and listen to me carefully."
I deliberately lowered and steadied my voice.
Soyeon stared at my lips with a taut, wary expression.
"From now on, when you're hungry, you say you're hungry."
"……"
"When something hurts, say it hurts. If you're so exhausted you feel like you're going to die, say you're exhausted."
Soyeon's eyes wavered finely, unable to find their footing.
"But…… then I'd become a useless freeloader…… and get thrown out……"
"No buts. None."
I pushed her forehead lightly with my index finger.
"You are now the first disciple of Cheonhae Gate. A student of the Bonja himself."
"……!"
"If my own disciple starves herself into the ground just to avoid the embarrassment of eating a meal, the people of the martial world will look at me and sneer, 'Look at that incompetent master who can't even feed his disciple.'"
Granted, the martial world had no idea Cheonhae Gate even existed, let alone who I was.
But if I didn't put it this way, that damned 'meal-worth trauma' of hers would clearly never be cured in this lifetime.
"Understand? So stop cowering for no reason and follow me. Food first."
"……Yes."
The answer was strangely small.
I turned and started toward my quarters, but no footsteps followed behind me.
When I glanced back, Soyeon was still standing rooted to the middle of the courtyard, head bowed low.
"What are you doing? Hurry up and come."
"I-it's nothing……!"
The girl hastily scrubbed at her eyes with a worn sleeve.
Then she shoved the discarded arrowroot root into a corner, and came trotting close behind me.
"Master."
"What."
"I……"
"What is it now?"
Soyeon fiddled with the hem of my worn robe for a long while, hesitating.
Then she asked, carefully:
"If I…… train hard too, could I become a disciple as impressive and wonderful as you, Master?"
"Where did that come from all of a sudden?"
"I don't…… know anything. I can't even read. My body's weak…… I've only ever received kindness from you, and I haven't done a single thing to repay it……"
I barely managed to suppress a hollow laugh and glanced out at the courtyard.
The weed patch had been devastated as if shelled by artillery, and the enormous boulder—once the size of a house—was split clean down the middle into two halves.
She did all that, and she says she hasn't done anything.
'Just how far below ground does this kid's self-worth dig?'
"Hey."
"Yes!"
"You're already doing more than well enough. No—you're doing too well, so knock off the nonsense."
Soyeon's eyes went as wide as fists.
It was the dazed face of someone who'd just heard the most shocking news in the world.
"I'm…… doing well?"
"Yeah. So don't make me say it twice. Let's go inside."
"……!"
Soyeon clapped a hand over her mouth at once.
But she couldn't hide the way the corners of her lips crept up, bashful and beaming, nearly reaching her ears.
Calling it a lunch table would have been generous.
Three leftover potatoes boiled soft in an iron pot, and a few handfuls of dried mountain herbs from the yard's corner, blanched in salt water—that was the whole spread.
It was a shabby table that couldn't even afford complaints about side dishes, but Soyeon knelt obediently before the potato bowl, not daring to lay a finger on it.
"What are you doing. It's getting cold. Eat."
"You should eat first, Master……"
"We can eat together. That's an order from your master—grab one, quick."
"Th-then, I'll dig in……!"
Only then did the girl carefully pick up a single potato.
She didn't stuff it into her mouth in a frantic scramble like she had last night. Whether she remembered my nagging to eat slowly, she blew on the hot potato until it cooled, puffed her cheeks out round, and chewed thoroughly before swallowing.
Watching her munch away with my chin propped in my hand, I started crunching numbers in my head.
'Alright. I'm raising her.'
Not as some middling third-rate martial artist.
The Greatest Under Heaven.
With a lump of talent that absurd, it was absolutely no pipe dream.
She'd converted the yin energy in her body into internal power overnight, and split a boulder in half while pulling arrowroot vines.
A raw gem so off-the-charts it could slap the protagonists of wuxia novels across the face.
'The raw material is perfect.'
The only question was how to polish that gem.
I bit into a boiled potato and narrowed my eyes.
Sword arts. Fist arts. Lightfoot movement.
Hundreds of suitably impressive martial technique names floated up in my head—and were erased within a second.
'No good.'
All I knew were the names. Last night's breathing-method lesson had already taught me that, painfully. If I handed her a sword, I had no techniques to demonstrate; if I ordered her into fist arts, I had zero confidence in teaching even a single proper punch.
'Lightfoot movement, though……'
I pressed a hand to my lower back. Throb. The moment I leapt off a roof, it'd be my own funeral.
But then.
My jaw, still mid-chew on potato, suddenly stopped.
'……Wait.'
I replayed last night. I had never taught Soyeon a proper cultivation method. I'd just tossed her belly breathing mixed with whatever half-remembered phrases I'd picked up from wuxia novels. And she'd listened to that, and on her own, moved the frigid qi of the Gut-Yin Severing Meridians.
This morning was the same. I told her to pull weeds. I just added one line—cast away distractions and pull them out root and all—which, thinking about it now, was a ridiculous thing to say.
The result?
I glanced out through the open door at the yard. The two halves of the boulder lay sprawled miserably in the sunlight.
"……."
No way.
Do I actually need to teach her martial arts?
Instead of giving her the method—
'What if I just give her the direction?'
How to use force. What to feel. What result to produce.
If I threw her just that much, wouldn't that monstrous talent of hers find its own answer, in its own way?
My heart began to pound, little by little.
'This…… might be worth testing out.'
Of course, there were conditions. If I gave her some random task and she smashed another boulder, we'd have a problem.
More than anything, this time I wanted to confirm how far Soyeon could take a direction I'd deliberately set—not another accident.
Safe. Simple. Something where failure couldn't hurt her.
And if possible—
'Something I don't want to do myself.'
*Swoosh.*
My gaze slid out past the open door. In one corner of the yard, a mountain of logs and firewood stood waiting for me in the sunlight.
"……."
Found it.
A rotten smile crept across my lips.
The moment the meal ended, I swept my robe out behind me and stood in the courtyard with the gravest expression I could manage.
"Soyeon. With your belly full, it's time to begin the first true training of the Bonja's legacy."
"Tr-training?!"
Soyeon, who'd been about to wash the dishes, came bounding out with her eyes shining.
Tension was plain on her face, but an even deeper excitement welled up and filled it completely.
"Yes, Master! Order me to do anything! Even if my bones break, I'll do my best!"
"Your bones breaking would be a problem, so pace yourself. Over here."
I led the girl to the woodpile.
Then I jabbed my chin at the rough oak logs lying scattered about.
"Chop those."
"……"
Soyeon looked at the mountain of logs.
Then back at me.
"You want me to…… chop firewood?"
"That's right."
"Yes! I'll split them all right away!"
She was obedient to the point of absurdity.
Facing those clear, doubtless eyes, a corner of my conscience stung faintly—but I cleared my throat and blew the guilt away.
Firewood was a necessity. We needed fires lit every night, and meals cooked.
And above all, if I chopped all that, my discs would rupture and I'd be declared permanently disabled.
Soyeon picked up the rusted iron axe standing beside the logs.
Watching the girl heft an axe nearly as tall as herself with grim determination, I hastily raised a hand.
"Hold on."
"Yes?"
If I just told her to chop wood, that was servant's drudgery, not a sect's training, wasn't it?
I needed to season this generously with the profound wisdom of wuxia.
Fortunately, when it came to chopping technique, I knew my stuff with uncanny precision. It was hard-earned, hands-on labor skill—drilled into my body over three months in the Manbokru kitchens while the head cook hurled six-letter curses at my head.
"Don't chop it with strength."
The axe Soyeon had been raising high froze mid-air.
"Not…… with strength?"
"Right."
With my hands clasped behind my back, I strolled slowly around the yard like a transcendent master beyond worldly concerns.
"Wood has something called the 'grain.'"
"Grain……"
"Whaling on a log with all your strength doesn't split it. See it with your eyes. Feel it with your heart. Where the flow of force must go."
This was one hundred percent real-world pro tip. Every piece of wood has grain and knots—swing an axe anywhere you like and you'll just chip the blade and wreck your wrist. Follow the grain, and it splits without effort.
Then I wrapped another layer of wuxia-wisdom packaging around it.
"The mediocre practitioner seeks to crush his target with overwhelming strength. But the true master creates the result he desires with the smallest of force. Do you understand?"
Soyeon's eyes sank deep.
"Not crushing with great strength…… but with small strength……"
"Yes. Let the axe fall as if it's flowing along the grain."
"I will engrave it in my heart, Master!"
Good. The setup of impressive-sounding nonsense was complete.
"Give it a try."
"Yes!"
Soyeon stood a log upright on the chopping block.
Then, gripping the axe handle tight, she drew a deep breath and glared fiercely at the wood.
'Relax my strength…… small force……'
*Thock.*
The axe blade bit shallowly into the top of the log.
"……"
"……"
Naturally, it didn't split.
Soyeon glanced back at me, flustered.
"Master…… it won't split……"
"Hm, naturally. You failed to read the grain properly. Continue."
"Yes!"
*Thock.*
Only a little bark peeled away.
*Thock! Thwack!*
This time the axe bounced off entirely.
The vicious monstrous strength that had shattered a boulder weighing thousands of pounds in the yard just an hour ago was nowhere to be found—the child was straining and grunting like an ordinary twelve-year-old, earnestly "holding back her strength and striking with small force," exactly as her master had taught.
With beads of sweat prickling across her forehead, she raised the axe and lowered it, over and over.
'Yes. That's exactly it.'
I exhaled a sigh of relief, rejoicing inwardly.
That dangerous power didn't need to grow any bigger. If she couldn't control it and one day grabbed me by the collar, my neck would snap. Teaching her to restrain her force first was the safe path.
*Thock.*
*Thock.*
The rhythmic, peaceful sound of axe-work rang through the courtyard.
Belly full, warm autumn sun pouring down on my back—
the sleep I'd lost shivering in the cold the night before came creeping softly over me.
'Let me just doze for thirty minutes or so.'
It was just firewood chopping. What disaster could possibly strike?
I leaned comfortably against a corridor pillar, crossed my arms, and let my eyes slide shut.
*Thock.*
*Thock.*
……
*Thock.*
How much time had passed?
A cool breeze brushed my cheek, and my eyes snapped open.
"……Hm?"
The surroundings were eerily quiet.
The axe strokes that had been tickling my ears in steady rhythm until moments ago had stopped dead.
'Did she finish already? Or did she collapse from exhaustion?'
I rubbed my eyes and sat up.
"Soyeon?"
No answer.
Scanning the yard, I found her still standing before the woodpile.
But something about her was strange.
She'd laid the axe down neatly on the ground, and now crouched low before a single log.
"What are you doing, spacing out?"
I asked as I approached, but Soyeon didn't stir an inch.
Like an old monk sunk deep in meditation, she held a rigid posture and stared fixedly at nothing but the base of the log.
"Hey. Soyeon."
The instant I moved to tap her shoulder, the girl's shoulders shivered, and her head slowly lifted.
Her eyes, glazed and unfocused, gradually turned toward me.
"Ah…… Master."
"Why'd you stop chopping and start daydreaming? I told you to pace yourself if you're tired."
"I'm not. It's not that I'm tired……"
Soyeon looked quietly down at the log.
Then she reached out a small hand and stroked the rough surface of the bark.
"What you told me earlier, Master…… it was so strange. So amazing."
"What was?"
"The grain."
"……The grain?"
"Yes."
Soyeon tilted her head and murmured quietly.
"At first I tried so hard to see it with my eyes, but no matter how I looked, it was all just bark and wood to me."
'Naturally, kid. You think grain-reading takes divine vision?'
"So I put the axe down and touched it gently with my hands instead."
"……And? What did you feel?"
"From my fingertips…… I can feel it."
"Feel what?"
Not knowing how to describe the sensation rising in her own mind, Soyeon spent a long while wiggling her fingers, searching for words.
"Here…… it's packed densely together, so it's hard."
Her small finger traced slowly across a rough knot in the log.
"Here, there are empty gaps, so it's breathing."
The finger slid downward.
"And inside…… thin, thread-like streams of water are all tangled together, running like a single road from the bottom all the way to the top."
"……"
I stared blankly at the girl.
'What the hell is she talking about?'
"You can see that?"
"No. I can't see it with my eyes."
Soyeon shook her head.
"But when I touch it and breathe…… it all paints itself in my head. How the tree grew. Where its energy flows."
In that instant—
A chill shot up my spine.
That dreadful, ominous, yet familiar déjà vu—of last night, and of this morning.
'Wait…… no way……'
"You were right, Master."
Soyeon's index finger landed, ever so lightly, on the very center of the log—on a hairline gap between two knots.
"There was no need to strike with great force at all. If I just point to this path…… the tree opens the way for me on its own."
"Hey, Soyeon. Hold on a sec—"
Too late.
Soyeon applied the tiniest touch of force to the tip of her index finger. *Tap.*
She hadn't detonated her internal power.
No frost-blue light spread out, and no thunderous boom erupted like when she'd smashed the boulder.
Only—
*Craaack—*
A single friction-note, so clean and crystalline it raised gooseflesh, sliced through the silence.
And before my eyes, an uncanny scene unfolded.
Down the very center of the log where Soyeon's finger rested, a perfectly straight, razor-thin line slid smoothly downward, as if drawn with ink.
This was no shard forced apart by an axe.
As if the wood had been two from the very beginning, the block of timber eased apart to either side, following the microscopic cells and hidden channels of the grain.
*Tok.*
*Tok.*
The log, split into two halves of flawless symmetry, slumped gently to the dirt floor.
The cut faces were smooth and lustrous, as if sliced by a master smith's legendary blade.
"……"
"……"
Not a breath of wind stirred in the courtyard.
Soyeon looked blankly back and forth between the two pieces of firewood lying on the ground and her own dirt-caked index finger.
Then she lifted her face, brimming with wonder, and peered up at me.
"Master……"
"……Yeah."
My jaw felt ready to clatter loose and drop to the ground.
"Is this…… what you meant by 'following the grain,' Master?"
"……"
I could only move my mouth open and shut, unable to produce a single answer.
I'd handed her the weary-worker's firewood wisdom I'd learned getting cussed out while chopping wood at Manbokru—
and this monster of a child had gone and attained, of all things, the principle underlying all creation.