Induction
Thud!
With a dull impact, a boy not yet ten years old went tumbling across the dirt.
Pain crept up from his struck abdomen, twisting his face. With difficulty he lifted his head and looked at the ones who had hit him.
Three men came into view, each wearing a crooked little smile. Their features were unmistakable: one was skinny, one was fat, and one was bald.
The bald man who had kicked the boy snickered, clearly enjoying himself.
"Not bad for a beggar. There's a real kick to hitting him."
"Hey, careful. You might kill him."
"Right. If we beat him to death, that's a problem."
The conversation made their intent plain enough: so long as the boy didn't die, they didn't care what became of him.
The boy swept a look around him. The people on the street paid the uproar no mind. Or rather, they were deliberately looking away. The men before him were well-known thugs in this neighborhood; no one wanted to step in and risk whatever retaliation might follow. And the boy was a rootless orphan, without a single connection in the world. No one was going to risk himself for a stranger. The thugs knew that perfectly well—that was why they had chosen him.
The bald man spoke again, his voice thick with mockery.
"If you want forgiveness, bow your head and crawl between my legs."
"……"
The boy said nothing. His fingers dug into the dirt. Humiliation and the weight of the thugs' gazes pressed down on him until rage welled up inside.
If he had done something wrong, at least it would not have felt so unjust. But he had done nothing. They tormented him simply because they could play with him without consequence. Men who did not see people as people were not men at all—they were beasts. And a beast that harmed people deserved to be killed by any means necessary.
In the boy's stare as he fixed on the thugs, cold fury and killing intent flickered.
"Ha. A little beggar brat, glaring at me?"
Catching the look, the bald man sneered and stamped down on the boy's head. He pressed with the sole of his foot, showing off that he could thrash someone like this whenever he pleased.
"If you're weak, at least know your place. Don't get smart—just crawl quietly on the ground!"
He had let his guard down. It never once crossed his mind that a scrawny little beggar would fight back. To him, the boy was a weakling whose struggles meant nothing. So when the boy moved, he failed to react in time.
Stab!
The boy drove the sharp shard of stone he had been hiding in his hand straight into the bald man's ankle.
"Agh!"
The man screamed and toppled backward. The boy did not waste the opening. He lunged onto the fallen bald man. His target was the short dagger at the man's waist.
"You little—!"
"A beggar, fighting back?!"
Belatedly, Skinny and Fatty drew their weapons and leveled them at the boy. But the situation had already reversed. The boy, dagger in hand, straddled the fallen bald man and set the tip of the blade against his throat.
"Stay still. Or I'll put a hole in his neck."
The thugs understood at once that it was no empty bluff. The killing intent glittering in his eyes was proof enough. The moment anything went wrong, he meant to take at least one of them with him—that vicious resolve was unmistakable.
Gulp.
Overwhelmed by the boy's presence, the thugs swallowed dryly and said nothing. Tension hung in the air, ready to snap at any second.
"Perhaps that is far enough."
Unexpectedly, a third party intervened. The voice belonged to a middle-aged man standing behind the boy. Long hair and a long beard gave him the air of a Taoist.
The boy could not help but startle at the man's casual arrival.
How long has he been standing behind me?
He had not heard a single footstep, nor felt so much as a flicker of approaching presence—even though he had kept his senses razor-sharp against any possible ambush.
This is no ordinary man.
Instinct rang a clear alarm: he must not refuse this unusual Taoist's suggestion. The boy did not ignore the warning. Obeying the Taoist's words, he quietly released the bald thug he had pinned beneath him.
At once the thugs rushed him.
"Die!"
"Now, now. That will not do."
The Taoist did not simply stand and watch. He curled his middle finger into a circle, set his thumb against it, and flicked twice.
A finger wind lanced through the air.
Twang! Twang!
With a sound like the air itself ringing, Skinny and Fatty crumpled where they stood. The boy's eyes went round with shock. A mere flick of the fingers, and grown men dropped—it was sorcery by another name.
The bald man who had been held hostage blanched at the sight of his comrades collapsing.
"S-sorcery!"
"Sorcery? Hardly. I merely launched a finger wind with the Finger-Flicking Art."
The Taoist clicked his tongue, as if offended that martial arts should be spoken of in the same breath as witchcraft. He approached the fallen bald man, pulled the stone from his leg, and pressed a few places on his body. The bald man slipped soundly into sleep.
"What did you do this time?"
"I sealed his pressure points to stop the bleeding, and put him under while I was at it. More importantly—are you all right?"
"I'm used to this much. I'm fine."
The boy spoke as if it were nothing, but marks of the beating still covered him. The Taoist saw through the attempt to hide the injuries.
"Come with me. While I take these thugs to a physician, I will have him look at you as well."
"I don't have any money."
"If you have none, then this humble Taoist will pay. If that weighs on you, think of it as a debt."
"……Why are you helping me?"
"You speak as though helping you were strange."
"Isn't that normal? Everyone else does the same."
At the boy's answer, the Taoist stroked his beard.
"There is something I wished to ask you."
"Something you wanted to ask?"
"Yes. I was curious why you chose to stand and fight."
Three against one. A child against grown men. Even with the enemy off guard, winning had been nearly impossible.
"You caught them by surprise and took a hostage—but that was all, was it not?"
"……"
The boy did not deny it. A bold, unexpected move had brought him to a standoff, but that was as far as it could go. The moment the hostage was freed or killed, numbers alone would have left him at a crushing disadvantage. Had the standoff continued, he would almost certainly have fallen to the thugs.
"From your reaction, it seems you already knew that. So why, after striking the unexpected blow, did you not simply flee?"
"I know running would have been wiser. But this place told me not to."
The boy laid a hand over his chest as he spoke. His opponents were beasts who treated people as toys. Those beasts had tormented him for no reason except that he was weaker than they were, and he had no wish to yield to men who had cast aside all righteousness. The instant he fled from those beasts, the memory of this day would brand itself into him. That foul memory would rise without warning, making him chew over regret and unfinished business. Better to die fighting than to live so meanly—so he had chosen to stand and fight, even knowing he had no chance of winning.
"To thrust your head into a fight you cannot win is foolishness."
The Taoist's reply was cold. Then a deep smile touched his lips as he went on, clearly pleased with the boy's answer.
"But to see through what one believes in—that is righteousness, and the way of the gallant. Powerless principles easily become a loser's excuse. So I will give you the chance to gain strength, that your principles never become an excuse. Will you follow me?"
The boy looked at the hand the Taoist held out. He did not know who the man truly was, but the offer itself did not seem false. Above all, the ease with which he had subdued the thugs had left a deep impression. As the Taoist said, without strength one could not resist injustice. So the answer was all but decided.
The boy took the Taoist's hand.
The boy left the village with the Taoist. As they walked, they spoke of many things.
"This humble Taoist's style name is Jinhyun. You may simply call me Taoist Jinhyun."
"Yes, Taoist Jinhyun."
"Good. Now I should like to hear your name."
"……"
The boy could not answer. He had no name. Names, after all, were things adults gave to children. For a boy who had lived alone since he was small, having none was only natural.
Jinhyun read the situation from the boy's silence.
"It seems we will have to begin by making you a name."
"You're going to give me a name?"
"Strictly speaking, a Taoist style name—but it will be little different from a given name."
Name or style name, it did not matter. The simple fact of having a word by which to be called made the boy visibly happy. Jinhyun watched him with quiet satisfaction and studied him carefully as he considered what to name him.
Orphans like the boy generally fell into two types. One kind was closer to a beast than a person. The other had been weathered early by the world's storms and grown twisted. The first were pure, in the kindest light—and, in the harshest, utterly ignorant. With so little contact with people, they knew nothing of manners, and in extreme cases could not even speak. The second had been battered by others until their character warped. Cast unprotected into the world, they could only look on society with bitterness.
As for which type the boy belonged to—he was both.
The way he had moved against the thugs was a long way from professional training. Yet the way he had seized openings and refused to let go suggested ample combat experience. That alone made him look like the first type, a survivor of a harsh world. But he used honorifics, however clumsily, with his elders, and knew at least the rudiments of courtesy. He had not only instinct but a will of his own—proof that he had lived in the world for a time, or received some small measure of teaching. And from how at ease he was climbing the mountain, and how carefully he watched his surroundings, he seemed to have some connection to mountain life.
Conveniently, the next generational character is Hwa—flower, radiance.
Hwa most often meant to shine, but it was also used for flowers and for the names of mountains. And if one expressed in a single character the righteousness with which the boy had chosen to fight the thugs—
"What do you think of Cheonhwa? Cheon can mean the heavens, but it can also mean will. In other words, 'one who makes his will shine.'"
"I like it. I'll take that."
The boy seemed fond of the name Cheonhwa; he repeated it under his breath again and again.
"Taoist Jinhyun—where are we going?"
"You ask soon enough. We are bound for this humble Taoist's sect. It will be the place you live from now on as well."
"Is it a good place?"
"That depends on what you mean by a good place."
The boy named the standards he had in mind.
"I wouldn't need to wear rags, and I wouldn't go hungry."
"You will wear new clothes of your own and eat three meals a day without fail."
"I wouldn't sleep in a drafty thatched hut, or use fallen leaves for a blanket."
"You will be assigned a private room in a proper building, and sleep in real bedding."
"Then I wouldn't have to sleep half-awake, worrying about wild animals?"
"Of course not. Maintaining that life, however, will be entirely up to you. All this humble Taoist can offer is the opportunity."
The boy—Cheonhwa—tried to picture Jinhyun's words.
A thatched house, decent clothes, three meals of greens a day…?
Having lived only among mountains and backwoods villages, the limits of his imagination were clear. And when they reached their destination, he understood just how meager that imagination had been.
Beyond a vast gate, halls such as he had never seen stretched away in rows. The ancient buildings, set into the mountain's form, were extraordinary at a glance. Above the gate hung a plaque carved in flowing script.
"Welcome to the Zhongnan Sect."
Jinhyun smiled gently and offered the words of welcome to a Cheonhwa who stood half out of his wits with wonder.