Layer Upon Layer
Paeng Yeon-hui was the daughter of Paeng Dae-il, family head of the Hebei Paeng Family, and the youngest of four siblings.
Though they called themselves siblings, they shared a father but different mothers—half-siblings. In a flourishing house like the Paeng Family, it was hardly unusual for a husband to take a second wife.
From childhood she had received the education expected of a martial family's child, training not only in martial arts but in many other disciplines as well. The adults often said things like this:
"The Hebei Paeng Family is a noble clan of the highest standing in all the Central Plains Wulin."
That was no empty flattery. A martial family was, by definition, a powerful clan that cultivated martial arts. Even a minor martial house on the frontier wielded influence comparable to that of a county magistrate. How much greater, then, was the stature of the Hebei Paeng Family—one of the Five Great Noble Families that stood at the summit of the Central Plains Wulin?
Within the Paeng domain, they could exercise influence even over princes and high ministers. Indeed, countless people bowed their heads at the mere mention of the Hebei Paeng Family, and the Paeng elders took that deference as their natural due, walking about with their heads held high.
Having never known the world beyond, Paeng Yeon-hui had believed that such conduct was only right. Yet there were those who said the adults were wrong. Among them was her elder brother, the eldest of the four siblings—Paeng Mu-jin—and other young people of the Hebei Paeng Family.
"We claim to uphold the righteous path, yet we chase worldly gain instead of true righteousness and order people about with a jerk of the chin. The Hebei Paeng Family has gone astray!"
Some of the family's younger generation denounced the house as a hypocritical clique. Such talk was more than enough to sour the tempers of the family head, the elders, and the rest of the older generation. Naturally the adults schemed to straighten out the younger generation's manners. Yet every time, Paeng Mu-jin vaulted over every obstacle with his innate talent and proved himself anew.
Having watched the conflict between the previous generation and the young, Paeng Yeon-hui could not help but wonder: were the adults right—or were her brothers and sisters?
To find out, she poured over books and sought knowledge, and through exchanges with people of the other Five Great Noble Families she studied how other houses fared. The Namgung Family, first among the Five Great Noble Families, was not so different from the Hebei Paeng Family; save for one person, the response was that the elders were right. The Moyong Family of the north, bound by a strict house tradition, was so driven by results that they had no leisure even to answer. The Jegal Family, famed as the Divine Stratagems of the Jegal, piled up obscure words and seemed reluctant to reply at all. The Sichuan Dang Family, filled with physicians and craftsmen, maintained an attitude of complete indifference.
Having surveyed the Five Great Noble Families in this way, Paeng Yeon-hui arrived at a single realization.
There isn't a single sound house among the Five Great Noble Families.
That included, of course, her own—the Hebei Paeng Family. The elders of the Hebei Paeng Family, whose arrogance had long since crossed the line, were a problem. But the younger generation that rebelled against them, fixated solely on chivalrous righteousness, were hardly in their right minds either.
Even among blood siblings there was strife. The third son, Paeng Gun-ak, had been steeped in the elders' arrogant ways. He did not order people about with his chin the way the adults did, but his pride in the Hebei Paeng Family ran far too deep—and that pride led him to look down on other sects and stir up discord.
The eldest, Paeng Mu-jin, could be called openhearted at best; at worst, he was a man who followed his own heart rather than the family's interests. Even knowing that the Paeng Family's support had made him who he was, he still seemed to place chivalrous justice above the house itself. As a result, Paeng Gun-ak and Paeng Mu-jin clashed at every turn—and the task of smoothing things over always fell to Paeng Yeon-hui.
And the second son? Did he not step in? The second young master, Paeng Sangho, was a man of no presence either for good or for ill. He simply watched events drift by and took neither side. In that he was better than the other two for not making matters worse—but he offered no help either, so the youngest, Paeng Yeon-hui, was the only one who suffered. Had they not been family, she would have kept her distance and avoided entanglement as much as possible.
When the four of them went together to the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, she had been anxious in every way. The Gathering was where the pillars of the righteous path from every corner of the Central Plains assembled. This was not an exchange among peers of similar standing like the Five Great Noble Families. It would not have been strange if Paeng Gun-ak caused some incident.
And sure enough, just as she had feared, Paeng Gun-ak caused a spectacular one.
Honestly—saying to a Zhongnan Sect disciple's face that the Paeng Family's martial arts are superior? What were you thinking!
What was the Zhongnan Sect? It might lag behind Shaolin Temple and the Wudang Sect in the contest for the head of the Nine Great Sects—but was it not a famous righteous sect that held the place immediately below them, alongside the Huashan Sect? Its record at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering showed few championships, yet it had consistently advanced to the upper ranks of the main tournament. To claim its martial arts were inferior to the Hebei Paeng Family's was absurd.
She had even brought in Paeng Mu-jin to salvage the situation somehow, but things had taken a strange turn.
If the Zhongnan Sect outperforms the Paeng Family at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, Brother Gun-ak has to apologize formally?
Since he had insulted their sect, demanding an apology was not itself strange—but she had never imagined they would set a condition like that.
If it were only about doing better than Brother Gun-ak, that would be one thing—but comparing against the entire Paeng Family?
That was no easy task. The Paeng Family had Paeng Mu-jin, a Peak Expert. First-class and Peak Expert were only one rank apart, yet the gulf between them was as heaven and earth. Paeng Mu-jin must have known that, so why had he accepted?
When she asked him, his answer was a spectacle.
"A man has resolved himself for the honor of his sect. As a man of the same mettle, how could I stop him?"
Was that something the eldest son who must one day lead the family ought to say? You spare thought for others' circumstances—couldn't you spare a little of that for the Paeng Family too? Of course he couldn't. That was why he had been stripped of the young family head's seat.
I'll go see him myself, with an apology as the pretext.
Paeng Yeon-hui had waited endlessly for Cheonhwa at the training grounds and finally met him. And when she faced him in person, she could not help but be surprised.
He looks about my age, yet he's already at the extreme of First-class?
Becoming First-class itself was possible for anyone with resources and time. But raising one's achievement beyond that was entirely a matter of the individual. To reach that realm at his age meant he clearly possessed something special.
And that thought proved exactly right.
On the day of the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, the match between Cheonhwa and Paeng Gun-ak. The result of a pairing that seemed almost as if someone had arranged it was Cheonhwa's one-sided dominance.
To be pushed back so utterly...
Overshadowed by Paeng Mu-jin he might be, but Paeng Gun-ak was a fighter hard to match among his peers. So why was Paeng Gun-ak losing? Because he used the rare heavy saber? Or because of the ice arts? Neither influence could be denied, but neither was the decisive reason.
He simply lost in pure capability.
The movements of Cheonhwa's sword art centered on fundamentals. Even techniques like Force-Riding Sword and Internal-External Dual Methods were built on simple structures. But precisely because of that, the wielder's own capability stood out all the more. Therefore Paeng Gun-ak's defeat was, without excuse or escape, his own lack of skill.
Will Brother Gun-ak be able to accept this result?
Was this not the Paeng Gun-ak who overflowed with pride in the Hebei Paeng Family to the point of equating it with himself? She had worried whether someone so full of pride could accept the present situation—
"No matter how excellent the martial art, if the martial artist's own ability falls short, one loses this emptily. Martial arts matter, but the one who uses them matters just as much. Only today have I understood that."
He was saying things he would never have said under ordinary circumstances. Startled by so sudden a change, Paeng Yeon-hui spoke without thinking.
"Are you really Brother Gun-ak?"
"Of course. Who else would I be but your older brother?"
"..."
"Hmm. Just as Elder Brother Mu-jin said, the world is wide. I truly was a frog in a well."
Faced with Paeng Gun-ak's manner, so drastically altered from before the match, Paeng Yeon-hui felt her head might go strange. Seeing once might be better than hearing a hundred times, but this was too dramatic a transformation. It felt like watching someone whose personality had been changed by soul-stealing arts.
They say the Zhongnan Sect is a lineage of the Profound Orthodox Path—could it possibly possess some power to reform people?
So shocking was the reality that Paeng Yeon-hui sank even into such nonsensical fantasies. In truth it was simply that the Paeng bloodline was so openhearted that once his head had been cracked open, he accepted reality with remarkable speed. But Paeng Yeon-hui did not know that, and did not want to know. For she herself was of Paeng blood—and she could not bear to accept that she might one day be the same.
Just what kind of person is he?
Paeng Yeon-hui found herself curious about Cheonhwa. It was a younger sister's curiosity about how he had changed Paeng Gun-ak so thoroughly—and at the same time a martial artist's curiosity about how he had achieved so much at his age.
Cheonhwa advanced triumphantly through the preliminaries after his match with Paeng Gun-ak. Driving forward like splitting bamboo, he secured his place in the preliminary finals. The rest of his party likewise succeeded in reaching the finals.
Who is my next opponent?
Cheonhwa headed toward the sparring stage where the final preliminary matchup was being decided. A match was already under way there. On one side, a monk draped in a kasaya was fighting a martial artist with a sword. Though bare-handed, the monk's fists casually struck aside his opponent's blade—clear proof of relentless external training that had achieved invulnerability to sword and saber.
A well-forged body.
He had met countless martial artists at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, yet until now none had possessed a body more complete than his own. That was because the Gyunchon Chukgi-gong devoted itself solely to expanding and perfecting the vessel that was the physical form. But today, for the first time, he saw a body more finished than his.
It isn't only the body that's complete. His internal energy is formidable as well.
The force contained in each strike was pure yet profound. One look at his qi signature was enough to know he had cultivated an outstanding internal art without cease. Ordinarily, training the external arts meant neglecting internal energy—yet both had been refined so excellently that he had clearly mastered a superior dynamic art.
Fist and palm methods, dynamic training, and a monk as well—there is only one sect that fits.
Shaolin Temple.
The famous righteous sect that contested the head of the Nine Great Sects and was renowned as the Mount Tai and Northern Dipper of the Wulin. So far-reaching was its influence that the saying went, "All martial arts under heaven come from Shaolin." Its most famous art was the dynamic method created by Bodhidharma, founding patriarch of Shaolin—the Yi Jin Jing. Thus Shaolin martial arts tended to center on dynamic training.
Shaolin's arts are remarkable, but that man's realm is no ordinary thing either.
He guessed that this Shaolin martial monk was a Peak Expert. He could not say so with absolute certainty because the man kept his energy thoroughly restrained—yet that very refined control of internal energy was itself evidence of the Peak realm.
If he's a Peak Expert, he could suppress his opponent with ease. Why is he drawing it out like this?
He was receiving each of his opponent's forms one by one. It felt less like toying with him and more like observing the man's full strength. The gap in skill was obvious, yet the swordsman did not give up and poured everything he had into the fight.
"Haaah!"
At last, with a shout of spirit, he unleashed his ultimate technique. In that instant, the Yukhapgamgakdo registered the change in his opponent.
The power of his form has increased?
Neither his Jin Release nor his internal energy had changed from before, yet the sword force riding the technique had risen a full degree higher. That could mean only one thing.
He's had a realization. He's found the state of mind that matches the intent dwelling in his martial art.
Such a sight was not easily come by. Had his opponent been of similar level, that realization might have won him the match—but unfortunately his opponent was a Peak Expert of Shaolin. The ultimate technique the martial artist poured his all into did not so much as brush the martial monk's robes.
Even so the man was not disappointed. Rather, with a face that looked somehow unburdened, he lowered his sword and spoke.
"I have lost."
"The victor is Beomhye of Shaolin Temple!"
With the referee's declaration, the final match of the preliminary semifinals came to an end. Then, from among those watching the match, interesting talk reached his ears.
"He made his opponent grow again this time."
"Once or twice you could call it chance, but every single time? There's clearly something going on."
"I wonder if Shaolin martial arts have some mysterious ability for it. It's enough to make a ghost cry."
At their conversation, Cheonhwa looked again at the martial monk descending from the sparring stage.
Every opponent he's fought so far has grown?
It was a reality hard to believe in many ways. Was it mere coincidence? Or was there some other reason?
Cheonhwa felt curiosity toward his final opponent of the preliminaries.