What Must I Do?
With a furious roar, Myeoldo charged forward.
“You worthless scum! I’ll slaughter every last one of you!”
The sight of Myeoldo radiating murderous intent made the government soldiers flinch. At that moment, a constable wearing yeonangyeong dashed out to meet him.
Myeoldo swung his blade, intending to cut the man down in a single stroke. He had no doubt the constable’s body would be cleaved in two.
Yet a heavy metallic clang rang out, and his horizontal slash was stopped cold. The recoil felt as though he had struck an iron plate, nearly knocking the sword from his grip.
Startled, Myeoldo looked at his opponent. His first thought was how fair the pale skin visible beside the tinted glasses appeared.
While he hesitated, the constable’s blade came at him like a storm.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
Blocking the relentless strikes, Myeoldo found himself retreating without realizing it. Once he noticed, he tried to counterattack, but it was useless. His opponent’s sword met every blow as if it were an iron wall.
“Hah! Since when does the county office have a master like this?”
Myeoldo’s eyes darted about. He had come here because government troops seemed easier to handle than martial artists, but he had been mistaken. As long as the man in the yeonangyeong stood in the way, the soldiers could not break through.
Realizing this, he quickly put distance between them.
“Who are you?”
“Dan Yeop, constable of the Jangan County Office! Surrender and accept your chains, criminal!”
“Which sect do you belong to? With such outstanding martial arts, how can you disgrace yourself by playing the dog of the government office? Aren’t you ashamed before your ancestors?”
“If someone called you a butcher and asked whether you felt ashamed before your ancestors, what would you say?”
“Hmph! What’s wrong with being a butcher? If I hadn’t slaughtered the animals, would you even have meat to eat?”
“My answer is the same. What’s wrong with being a constable? I became one solely for the safety of the people!”
In that moment, Dan Yeop was grateful for the yeonangyeong shielding his eyes. He had invoked the people’s welfare only to avoid losing the verbal sparring, yet the words left him deeply embarrassed.
Myeoldo no longer felt the need to continue the exchange. Suddenly, a sharp pain shot across his back. His hand gripping the sword and his right leg went numb—it was no light wound.
At that instant, a chilling sword aura laced with killing intent surged from behind. It was Iha-jin’s blade.
While Myeoldo had been delayed fighting Dan Yeop, Iha-jin had circled behind him.
Myeoldo spun like lightning and swung his sword. Even in that life-or-death moment, however, he remained more wary of Dan Yeop than of Iha-jin. The constable’s blade frightened him more.
Yet Iha-jin, known as the Cloud-Flowing Swordsman, was no easy opponent. The moment Myeoldo’s attention wavered, Iha-jin’s sword changed. Instead of clashing directly, it flowed like drifting clouds, gliding along the blade’s surface and slipping inside.
Iha-jin’s sword sliced through Myeoldo’s armpit.
Swish—!
For a heartbeat, Myeoldo, Iha-jin, and Dan Yeop all stood motionless, as though time itself had frozen.
Then Iha-jin’s blade swept across Myeoldo’s wide-open chest. It was his ultimate technique, the Heaven-Earth Chain Strike.
Slash—!
Myeoldo’s chest split open, and crimson blood gushed forth.
Only then did Iha-jin shout, “Myeoldo, you wretch! Do you finally understand the terror of the Jongnam Sect?”
Myeoldo let out a trembling laugh. “Heh heh heh… I’m so scared I could die, you bastard.”
He turned toward Dan Yeop. Knowing death was near, Iha-jin did not strike again.
“Dan Yeop…”
With those words, Myeoldo slowly toppled backward.
Once Myeoldo fell, Magistrate Jo Mu-jin approached Elder Iha-jin and offered his congratulations to the Jongnam Sect. Yet the elder’s shoulders sagged heavily; two of the Seven Swords of Jongnam had lost their lives.
Dan Yeop gazed down at Myeoldo’s corpse with a complicated expression. What had the man been about to say?
While Dan Yeop was lost in thought, Captain Do Gyeom patted his shoulder.
“Well done. Without you, this could have ended in disaster.”
In truth, it was Iha-jin who had slain Myeoldo, but the victory had come almost by chance—seized while Dan Yeop kept the criminal occupied. More than that, had Dan Yeop not been present, the soldiers would likely have been cut down just like General Choi Eon’s guards.
Constable Jang Ho grumbled beside them. “If we’d left it alone, Constable Dan would have caught him. That so-called elder just ambushed and finished the job. And now the Jongnam Sect will go around claiming they killed Myeoldo.”
Do Gyeom glanced at Dan Yeop and said, “Don’t take it too badly. The Jongnam Sect lost two of their rising talents. With that much damage, they can have the credit for slaying Myeoldo. Without the martial world’s help, we wouldn’t have cornered him in the first place.”
Jang Ho offered no rebuttal. Remembering how Myeoldo had rampaged among the martial artists, he could not entirely disagree.
99th Episode. What Should I Do?
That evening.
Son-taek.
Inner Hall.
After dinner, while sipping tea, Son Yu-baek suddenly asked Dan Yeop, “What have you been thinking about so deeply?”
“Ah, Cheonlyeon.”
Son Yu-baek nodded in understanding. “I hear the arrest office has been run ragged because of them lately.”
“I don’t understand why they would throw their lives away like that.”
Son Ji-heon cut in. “They believe they’re the buddhas who will save the world.”
“Even so, sometimes they seem too desperate for that to be the whole reason.”
Dan Yeop suddenly recalled the Seok siblings, especially the words Seok Ye-seol had spoken—words he still could not forget.
—Could you simply leave me to die? If things continue this way, I’ll be beheaded or dismembered.
—Do you wish to watch someone who did the right thing be killed by great evil?
—I’ve already told you why we killed Yi Ja-seong and the officials. You could just take our bodies and return.
Those were not the words of people who believed themselves to be world-saving buddhas. He still did not know the motives of Myeoldo or the unidentified woman. Yet the expression on Myeoldo’s face in his final moments had been far too peaceful to belong to a ruthless killer. It was the face of someone who held neither regret nor lingering attachment.
Son Yu-baek, watching him quietly, spoke. “It is true that Cheonlyeon cannot be summed up in a single phrase. Some see themselves as buddhas, while others are families of victims wronged by corrupt officials. The ones you met seem to belong to the latter group.”
“I think so. When I was arresting them, I felt as though I was the one committing a crime. Later, I could hardly bear to listen to their words.”
“Heaven is truly indifferent. There are many upright and capable officials, yet those who hold power are mostly corrupt and incompetent. Cheonlyeon is the same. Those who move it are not victims angered by unjust rulers, but people who believe they are the buddhas who will save the world. As a result, their methods grow ever more ruthless, and they no longer distinguish between good and evil.”
“Then what must I do?”
“What else? As a constable, you must arrest criminals.”
Son Yu-baek did not elaborate on Cheonlyeon. He trusted that Dan Yeop would walk the right path without needing further guidance.
Some time later, back in the annex, Dan Yeop removed the yeonangyeong he had worn all day. His heart heavy, he opened the notebook. Even the clumsy handwriting of the original Dunce Dan Yeop brought a warm, nostalgic feeling.
He chuckled softly, then rose and extinguished the oil lamp. From his travel bag he took out the Geumru-ok-ui and put it on before lying down on the bed.
“Wearing the yeonangyeong all day and then sleeping in the Geumru-ok-ui… Anyone who saw me would think I’d gone mad.”
He focused on the mantra of the Yi-won-gwi-il-gong. A dizzying sensation washed over him, and soon a starry sky unfolded before his eyes. The Milky Way flowed like a river, and stars of every color twinkled. The mystical sight was beautiful enough to watch forever.
Dan Yeop lost himself in the starlit heavens, unaware of time passing. At some point, his own body became one of the drifting stars.
A woman’s voice reached him from afar.
“…have you risen?”
“Hm?”
Dan Yeop tried to focus on the voice.
“Young master, have you awakened?”
Only then did he come to his senses. He opened his eyes wide and answered, “Yes, I’ll be right there.”
Once the maid’s footsteps faded, Dan Yeop sprang up. It was the first time he had fallen asleep while cultivating the Yi-won-gwi-il-gong.
“Good heavens! What was I thinking? What if someone had seen me?”
He hurriedly got off the bed, removed the Geumru-ok-ui, and returned it to his travel bag.
“Why did I fall asleep? Was I that tired?”
A brief doze was possible, but falling into a death-like slumber was a problem. He washed his face roughly and headed for the inner hall.
Even as he walked, he could not understand himself. He had never fallen asleep while practicing the Tae-eul-bon-won-yeon-seong-gyeol or the Sim-jeong-dan-gong. The same should have held true for the Yi-won-gwi-il-gong.
Still unable to believe it, he asked himself, “But did I actually fall asleep?”
Honestly, he did not know. The maid had woken him shortly after he began cultivating, so he had assumed he had only dozed off. Anyone would think they had fallen asleep if nearly four hours had passed in the blink of an eye.
“Oh no!”
Perhaps it was because his mind was filled with distracting thoughts. Dan Yeop dropped the dumpling he had been lifting with his chopsticks into the soup bowl. Broth splashed onto his yeonangyeong.
As he absentmindedly removed the glasses to wipe them, Son Yeon-hwa, who had been watching him, spoke. “Brother Dan, your golden eyes have faded a little.”
Dan Yeop paused, the glasses still in his hands. “Really?”
“Yes. Before, the gold was much deeper. Now it’s different.”
Son Ji-heon, seated beside him, nodded vigorously. “It’s true. It’s no longer golden eyes—it’s copper-coin eyes now.”
“That much?”
This time, the daughter-in-law, Yu Hwa-yeong, joined in. “It really is. Still, calling them copper-coin eyes is a bit much. They’re closer to copper-mirror eyes.”
A bronze mirror carried a faint golden sheen, which was why she had said copper-mirror eyes.
Even the stern Son Yu-baek joined the debate about Dan Yeop’s eye color. “I thought there might be a foreigner among your ancestors, but apparently not.”
Dan Yeop smiled awkwardly and put the yeonangyeong back on. His master had clearly said that upon mastering the Yi-won-gwi-il-gong, one’s eyes would turn golden. Yet the world was full of surprises.
“Could this be because the Yi-won-gwi-il-gong has deepened further?”
He was likely the only person who had ever cultivated the Yi-won-gwi-il-gong while wearing the Geumru-ok-ui, the treasure of the ancient Taego Sect. Perhaps this was the phenomenon of returning to simplicity and recovering one’s true nature—ban-pak-gwi-jin.
“I don’t know the reason, but it’s fortunate that the golden color is fading.”
Wearing the yeonangyeong all day was inconvenient in more ways than one. The pressure on the bridge of his nose and temples was annoying, and people stared at him strangely wherever he went. If he could endure just a little longer, that would no longer be necessary. The thought lifted his spirits.
***
Whether his luck was good or not, fortunate events continued one after another.
When Dan Yeop arrived at the arrest office, Captain Do Gyeom brought good news.
“Everyone, listen! We’ve received word that one of the female criminals has been located.”
“Where? Where is she?”
Constable Jang Ho asked as though he were ready to rush off immediately. The woman had killed the soldier Gok-un, who had been with him.
“Mannyeon Cheoljang.”
Dan Yeop let out a soft sigh as he recalled the father and son Muk Cheol-sim and Muk Geum-gang. No one connected to Cheonlyeon ever seemed to meet a good end.
Do Gyeom continued, “Constable Dan said Mannyeon Cheoljang looked suspicious, so we’ve been keeping watch—”