Initiation (2)
Once they passed through the main gate and into the heart of the Zhongnan Sect, a spectacle far grander than anything glimpsed from outside unfolded before them.
The neat, refined halls that rose on every side looked extraordinary even to an untrained eye.
As Cheonhwa kept turning his head in open wonder, Jinhyun gave a light cough.
“Ahem. Sightseeing can wait. Follow me.”
“Yes, Daoist.”
Even as he walked behind Jinhyun, Cheonhwa could not stop stealing glances left and right.
Sensing the boy’s gaze, the Daoist let out a soft snort of amusement.
“Well now. Is it that fascinating?”
“Yes. The buildings are incredible, and there are so many people—I was surprised.”
“Of course. Our Zhongnan Sect stands, together with the Huashan Sect, as one of the two great pillars representing Shaanxi. It is only natural.”
“It’s that famous?”
Cheonhwa was startled to learn that the sect he was about to join commanded a reputation higher than he had imagined.
When the boy’s eyes went round as a startled rabbit’s, the Daoist laughed heartily.
“Looking at that face, I’m glad I kept it from you until now.”
When the two of them stepped into the hall called Sanggyun Hall, a man wearing a hero’s headband across his brow came out to meet them.
“Welcome back, Martial Uncle Jinhyun.”
“Ah, Martial Nephew Muwol. Have you been well?”
“As well as one can be while managing the newly arrived third-generation disciples without a moment to breathe.”
“Mm. I know you are busy, and I am sorry to add one more task to your load. While I was out, I brought back a boy to take as a disciple.”
At Jinhyun’s words, Muwol’s gaze naturally settled on Cheonhwa standing behind him.
He looked the boy over once, then spoke in a voice edged with concern.
“Do you mean to place him among the least of the Wol-character generation?”
“That would put too great a distance between age and rank. An initiate of the Hwa-character generation will do.”
“Understood. I will add him to the register of third-generation disciples.”
Listening to the exchange, Cheonhwa tilted his head.
They seemed to be talking about him, yet he could not make sense of a word.
“Daoist, what is a generational ranking?”
“It refers to the order of seniority within the sect. The characters Wol and Hwa are the ones we place in our Daoist names according to that ranking.”
“And third-generation disciples?”
“It shows how many steps of ranking separate one from the sect leader who stands at the head of us all.”
Jinhyun offered a simple example so the difference would be clear.
“Take me, for instance. I stand in the generation of the sect leader’s disciples, so I am a first-generation disciple. Muwol here is a disciple of a disciple, and therefore a second-generation disciple.”
“Then I am the disciple of a disciple of a disciple, so I am a third-generation disciple?”
“Exactly. And belonging to a sect means becoming one family—one household under the same roof.”
“Family…”
Family.
To a boy who had been an orphan with no one in the world, the word carried a meaning unlike any other.
Yet simply by joining a sect, one became family.
Becoming family by a bond other than blood felt strange and new—and, at the same time, not entirely unwelcome. After all, it would make him family with Jinhyun.
“From now on you will address second-generation disciples as Martial Uncle, and first-generation disciples as Grand Martial Uncle.”
“Then from now on I should call you Grand Martial Uncle as well?”
“That’s right. The rest you will learn in time. Living among the third-generation disciples will teach you naturally enough.”
Jinhyun ruffled Cheonhwa’s hair as he continued.
“This is as far as I go with you.”
“…”
The boy looked up at the Daoist in silence.
It had been only a short while, yet somehow affection had already taken root.
Sorrow gathered in the boy’s eyes.
“When you have time, come find me at the Jangseogak. That is where I usually am.”
Jinhyun did not say goodbye.
They were family of the same sect now, were they not?
If he wished to see him, he could meet him whenever he liked.
Even so, the boy’s gaze remained fixed on the Daoist’s receding back and would not let go.
Only when Jinhyun’s figure had vanished completely did Muwol speak.
“From this moment you are a third-generation disciple. First, by custom, we will settle your Daoist name.”
“Daoist name?”
“The name you will use as a man of the Dao in place of your worldly name. Did Martial Uncle Jinhyun give you one already?”
“He gave me the name Cheonhwa.”
“Cheonhwa… That one is not yet taken. You may keep it without trouble.”
After confirming no one else on the register shared the name, Muwol turned to Cheonhwa again.
“There is much else that must be done, but…”
Muwol looked the boy up and down.
Dirt streaked every inch of him; he was filthy, ragged, and reeked.
The clothes he wore were so torn they were little better than rags.
“…before anything else, you will wash and change.”
Making this grimy figure look like a human being came first.
Led by Muwol, Cheonhwa washed clean and changed into new clothes.
Once his appearance was neat and his robes properly arranged, he looked like a different person entirely.
Muwol then took the presentable Cheonhwa through the various places of the Zhongnan Sect according to the initiation rites of a third-generation disciple.
Along the way Cheonhwa learned everything from basic common sense to what kind of place the Zhongnan Sect was and how a disciple was expected to conduct himself.
By the time every formality was finished and they reached his private room in the third-generation disciples’ quarters, the hour of Xu had already passed and the night was pitch dark.
“You have done well. Tomorrow I will assign someone to show you around the sect, so rest thoroughly.”
After Muwol left, Cheonhwa was alone. He looked over the interior of the room.
The private chamber was furnished with the essentials—bedding, a table, a chair.
Cheonhwa examined each piece one by one.
They were a little worn, yet none of them was broken; every piece was sound.
He stretched his weary body out upon the bedding.
As he stared quietly at the ceiling, the events of the day circled through his mind.
A proper name.
Sect members who had become his family.
A bath in water warmed for him.
Clean new clothes that fit his body.
A private room and tidy furniture.
These were luxuries he could never have imagined before.
It would be a lie to say he was not glad—yet alongside the gladness ran a current of unease.
Nothing in this world came free; everything carried a price.
Still, it isn’t all bad.
His life had always been one in which death at any moment would not have been strange.
Had Jinhyun not helped him, he might well have died right there after the fight with the ruffians.
Better to die as a disciple of a great sect than to die nameless in the gutter.
Whether man or beast, every life ends someday. If that is so, then at the very least I will choose where I die.
For that reason he felt no regret at having taken the Daoist’s hand.
Even if he were sent back into the past, he would make the same choice without doubt.
To an orphan with no ties, the world had been bitterly cold—and the only way to force his will upon it was to grow strong himself.
The chance he had been promised had been given; whether he seized it or not was entirely up to the boy.
To do that, he first needed to grow accustomed to life as a third-generation disciple.
Carrying both anxiety and anticipation for the morrow, the boy slipped under the weight of sleep and drifted off.
Beyond the window, moonlight fell in a soft glow, wrapping the exhausted child as if in an embrace.
The next morning.
As promised, a visitor arrived.
The guide was a boy who looked about Cheonhwa’s own age.
He offered a cheerful greeting.
“I’m Myeonghwa. Just call me Senior Brother Myeonghwa.”
“Hello. I’m Cheonhwa.”
“Right, Junior Brother Cheonhwa. Looking forward to working with you. Here—a gift.”
Myeonghwa drew something from his robes and held it out.
It was a round fasting pill and a bamboo water flask.
“What is this?”
“A fasting pill. I heard you missed meals yesterday, so I brought something to fill your stomach first.”
As if on cue, Cheonhwa’s stomach gave a loud growl.
Exhausted by the initiation rites, he had completely forgotten that he had skipped both lunch and dinner the day before.
“Thank you for the meal.”
Cheonhwa chewed the fasting pill with steady bites, taking occasional sips of water.
Watching him eat the tasteless thing without so much as a change of expression, Myeonghwa could not help but be impressed.
“You really can eat that bland stuff.”
“…Gulp. Is it that bad? I can’t really tell.”
Compared with the days when he had foraged mountain greens or simply gone hungry, this was more than enough to be grateful for.
After finishing the rough meal, Cheonhwa followed Myeonghwa out of the quarters.
“The places we’re about to visit are ones you’ll be coming and going from all the time from now on.”
Myeonghwa wove together descriptions of each stop with the daily routine of a third-generation disciple.
“First thing in the morning you’ll gather at the training ground for basic conditioning.”
“When do we eat?”
“After morning practice comes breakfast. After that you take your assigned duty shift.”
Cleaning, laundry, drawing water, chopping firewood, and every other petty chore—the third-generation disciples divided them by rotation and quota and got them done.
“Once duty is finished and lunch is over, you study all sorts of things at the academy next to the Jangseogak. The biggest part is probably literacy.”
“Literacy?”
“Right. To learn martial arts you have to know how to read.”
“You mean things like the Finger Snap Art, Finger Wind, and Pressure Point Striking?”
At the mention of martial arts, Cheonhwa recalled the wondrous techniques Jinhyun had displayed.
The memory of how easily the ruffians had been subdued was still vivid.
Having followed Jinhyun precisely to gain power, his interest was only natural.
“That’s right. But Finger Wind and Pressure Point Striking are fairly high-level arts. You’ll only be able to learn them much later.”
“That’s fine. What matters is that I can learn them someday.”
“To do that, though, you’ll first have to rise from initiate disciple to full disciple.”
“Rise?”
“Not every disciple is the same, you know.”
Myeonghwa explained the ranks of discipleship.
“Disciples of the main mountain are broadly divided into initiate disciples, registered disciples, personal disciples, and True Mountain disciples.”
An initiate disciple was exactly what the name suggested: a disciple who had merely stepped inside the fence of the sect.
In other words, a candidate for full discipleship.
Cheonhwa, Myeonghwa, and every other disciple of the Hwa-character generation belonged to this category.
“To become a registered disciple—a full disciple—you have to pass the annual promotion examination a total of three times within five years.”
“What happens if you don’t pass?”
“What happens is you leave the mountain. Exceed five years or fail the examination three times, and you’re sent down.”
Only then did Cheonhwa recall the words Jinhyun had spoken.
Come to think of it, he said maintaining this life was up to me.
So that was what he had meant.
“Does a disciple who leaves the mountain stop being a disciple of the Zhongnan Sect?”
“Not quite. Leaving the mountain doesn’t erase the fact that you were a disciple. That’s why initiate disciples who leave are called secular disciples.”
A secular disciple was one who had to live in the ordinary world, far from the main mountain.
“For reference, my grandfather was a secular disciple of our school. Thanks to that, our family prospered greatly.”
Being a secular disciple of a great sect was itself a kind of guarantee.
Even if one’s name no longer appeared on the sect’s formal register, one still stood under the shelter of a great school, and that alone brought many advantages.
Some people even sent their children to a sect with the express goal of making them secular disciples.
“If you show outstanding results in the examinations, you might even be chosen by one of the Martial Uncles of the Wol-character generation and become a personal disciple.”
A registered disciple had his name entered in the official rolls and was a full disciple, yet without a personal master he inevitably faced difficulties in learning martial arts.
A personal disciple, by contrast, received instruction directly from a master and therefore enjoyed advantages in many respects over a registered disciple.
“Then what is a True Mountain disciple?”
“It means the elite among the elite—those who have earned the right to learn the sect’s secret arts.”
A sect as old as the Zhongnan Sect naturally possessed many martial arts accumulated over long ages.
Among them were arts of an entirely different order from ordinary techniques—the so-called superior martial arts.
Superior martial arts were taught only to those whose talent and character had both been proven.
Such people were called disciples of the main mountain who had grasped the true essence of the martial path, and so they were known as True Mountain disciples.
“True Mountain disciples are a distant story. First we have to figure out the promotion examinations.”
“How do I do well on the promotion examinations?”
“They center on the basic martial arts, so just learn those well.”
“Then I should start learning martial arts right away?”
“Before that you’ll have to study literacy.”
Memorizing martial formulas required knowing the characters; that was why initiate disciples who could not read were made to study literacy before martial practice.
Nearly half of the Hwa-character disciples were currently studying reading and writing.
The other half had learned their letters beforehand for various reasons.
Myeonghwa, as the descendant of a secular disciple, had already been taught and was therefore learning martial arts at once.
“Wait a moment. You said I need martial arts to take the promotion examinations?”
“That’s right.”
“And I need literacy to learn martial arts.”
“Exactly.”
“Then what happens to the promotion examinations while I’m studying literacy?”
“If you haven’t learned martial arts within the time limit, you can’t take the examination at all—so it counts as a failure by absence.”
“…”
“I’ve strayed too far from the topic. As for the rest of the daily schedule…”
Myeonghwa continued explaining the routine, but none of it reached Cheonhwa’s ears.
The boy’s mind was filled with thoughts of failure.
If I fail three times before I master the characters, what then?
In all likelihood he would leave the main mountain without ever having learned martial arts.
For Cheonhwa, who had no one, that would be no different from being cast naked into the secular world.
When the thought reached that far, his expression hardened.
His former life had been a daily struggle for survival.
He had shivered through the cold in tattered clothes and a shabby hut.
On days when even wild greens could not be found, he had not hesitated to dig up and eat dirt to fill his belly.
Many nights he had stayed awake with only the moonlight for company, watching for mountain beasts.
Had he never known a life free of worry over food, sleep, and clothing, it might have been different.
Rather than return to those hellish days, he would sooner bite through his own tongue and die.
No matter what, I have to remain on the main mountain.
For that, he was prepared to do anything.
The problem is that I know nothing about studying.
Having lived a life far removed from books, Cheonhwa had no knowledge of how to learn characters.
Fortunately, the person who could solve that problem was standing right in front of him.
“…That’s the end of the explanation. If there’s anything else you’re curious about, just ask. Don’t hold back.”
“Senior Brother Myeonghwa, how do I get good at literacy?”
“Usually the proper way is to repeat the characters out loud or copy them over and over until you memorize them. That’s how I learned.”
“So if I repeat them or copy them, that will do it.”
A sharp, cold light of ruthless determination flashed in the boy’s eyes.