The Sichuan Dang Family
The moment the match ended, Cheonhwa offered Beomhye a proper bow of respect and gratitude.
"Thank you, Master Beomhye. Thanks to you, I was able to grasp a new understanding. One day, I will repay this kindness without fail."
"Think nothing of it, Benefactor Cheonhwa. This humble monk may have offered a little help, but the enlightenment itself came purely from your own effort. Raise your head."
Beomhye pressed his palms together, a faint smile resting at the corners of his mouth.
There was something in that smile that seemed genuinely proud of Cheonhwa's growth. Even after losing the match, he held no bitterness, no fierce rush of relief—only a steady, untroubled calm that left Cheonhwa quietly astonished.
Above all, he could not understand why his opponent had chosen to teach him during the bout itself, and so he asked directly.
"Master Beomhye, have you given advice like that to everyone you faced in these matches?"
"Yes. Once I saw what there was to see, I simply could not leave it alone."
"But shouldn't you have been aiming to win and advance to the main tournament?"
The Dragon and Phoenix Gathering was a martial competition that drew promising young talents from every corner of the Central Plains. Reaching the main rounds meant proving one's skill while elevating the honor of one's sect. For a pillar of the orthodox path like Shaolin, face alone should have demanded advancement.
Beomhye slowly shook his head.
"Victory and defeat certainly matter. As a martial artist, I prefer winning to losing. But at the same time, this humble monk is also a monk."
Someone he could help had stood before him. The ability to help had been in his hands. And so he had helped.
"Had this been a life-and-death duel, it would have been another matter entirely. But the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering is also a place for young talents to exchange what they know. Rather than cling to victory or defeat, I simply followed where my heart led."
His own victory would have brought joy and raised Shaolin's renown, yet the growth of the orthodox path's pillars was a blessing for the entire righteous martial world. Losing was not, by his lights, an unmitigated evil.
"If I have one regret, it is only that I might have guided still more of these young talents had I reached the main tournament. That is all."
"…"
For a moment Cheonhwa found himself at a loss for words.
The monk's clear eyes left no doubt—these were not empty courtesies, but the truth. Whether this was simply the way of Shaolin or something unique to Beomhye, he could not say. One thing was certain: the man's breadth of spirit was anything but ordinary.
"You are remarkable. I don't think I could ever manage to be like you, Master."
"There is no need to follow my example. I did only what I wished to do. Benefactor Cheonhwa need only walk Benefactor Cheonhwa's path. And you already know the way, do you not?"
He meant the middle-stage perfection of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven that Cheonhwa had awakened to during the match. By gathering into one the principles of every sword art he had trained and forging from them a Middle Path Sword that was entirely his own, he had reached that stage. The formulas that formed middle-stage perfection belonged to no one else—they were purely Cheonhwa's inner vision.
"Do you think I can do it well?"
"Of course. You defeated none other than Shaolin's Iron Fist Dragon, did you not?"
There had been restrictions, true—but he had taken victory from a Peak Expert. He had every right to take pride in that, Beomhye said, smiling gently.
"Then I wish you every success, Benefactor Cheonhwa."
"Yes. I will strive hard enough for both our shares."
They exchanged parting courtesies and turned their backs on each other as they left the arena. One had won; one had lost. Yet that did not mean a simple ending. The victor now carried even the loser's honor as he moved forward—for an ugly defeat would only have dirtied the faces of every opponent he had already overcome.
Once the preliminaries ended, the sixteen contestants who would advance to the main tournament were decided.
Among those sixteen were Cheonhwa and all of his fellow disciples. At the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, every last participant from the Zhongnan Sect had reached the main rounds—an extraordinary achievement.
"Hah. Zhongnan's momentum is something else. Who would have thought all five of them would advance?"
"I was already stunned when a Zhongnan disciple beat the Iron Fist Dragon, but this is a shock of its own."
"This year's crop of Zhongnan juniors is no ordinary lot. We may be looking at Zhongnan's first championship in a long while."
"Who was that Zhongnan disciple who beat the Iron Fist Dragon again?"
"I heard it was a third-generation disciple named Cheonhwa. In Shaanxi he's been making a name under the title Jade Light Sword."
"He's barely stepped into the jianghu and already has a title?"
"That alone should tell you how skilled he is."
Word of Zhongnan's results passed freely from mouth to mouth, and the talk inevitably drifted to the one who had defeated a Peak Expert. Even the title once known only within Shaanxi Province began to spread by quiet degrees.
"Your name won't be confined to Shaanxi anymore—it'll be known across the whole of the Central Plains. How does that feel, Junior Brother Cheonhwa?"
"I don't know. Everyone suddenly recognizing me has left me feeling rather unsettled."
Cheonhwa shook his head with a wry smile at Myeonghwa's teasing question. He had come to the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering to gain experience and raise his sect's honor, true enough—but he had never imagined the attention would focus on him like this.
I thought I'd gotten used to eyes on me…
Even back at Zhongnan he had, without meaning to, stirred up one storm after another, and so he was more accustomed than most to drawing stares. This time, though, the scale and intensity were of an entirely different order. People recognized him and called out wherever he went; looks of admiration and envy flew at him from every side. Compared to the days when, as an orphan of the streets, he had been beaten by local thugs, it was heaven and earth.
"Will you be all right? The grand banquet coming up soon will be even harder."
"…"
At Myeonghwa's point, Cheonhwa closed his mouth.
The grand banquet was a kind of social gathering hosted by the Sichuan Dang Family to celebrate the end of the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering preliminaries. The Gathering itself was both a martial tournament and a place for young talents of the orthodox path from across the Central Plains to mingle—yet many neglected the social side in favor of focusing on their matches. Cheonhwa himself had been in and out of the training chambers at every opportunity. Those who truly used the Gathering for exchange were a minority—people like Myeonghwa and Yang Palsan.
That ran counter to the spirit of the event. And so the host, the Sichuan Dang Family, had personally created a chance for that exchange.
"There will be a lot of people, I suppose?"
"Of course there will. The host has opened the inner compound specifically for the Gathering's participants."
The Sichuan Dang Family was one of the Five Great Noble Families of the orthodox path—a great house in every sense. Guests would not be free to wander beyond the designated banquet grounds, but when else would one ever get a look inside one of the Five Great Families? At the same time, one could mingle there with young talents from every region of the Central Plains. Simply attending would give a person stories worth boasting about for years.
"Honestly, I don't particularly want to go—but that's not an option, is it?"
"The main-tournament contestants have all been asked to grace the occasion. For the host's face alone, we'll have to go."
The Sichuan Dang Family was famous for repaying kindness twofold and grudges tenfold. Without a proper justification, failing to attend would leave a lasting mark in their memory. Some might call that petty for a great orthodox house—but the very power to silence such talk was what made a great house what it was.
At Myeonghwa's explanation, Cheonhwa let out a sigh. Left to his own wishes, he would have ignored the banquet entirely and buried himself in training. He had reached middle-stage perfection in the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven, but that perfection was not yet complete.
Just as early-stage perfection had two formulas, middle-stage perfection has two as well.
At present, Cheonhwa had completed only one of those middle-stage formulas. One still remained.
I've already found the clue for the next step.
Early-stage perfection had centered on an unshakable core and free sword paths. Free sword paths meant breaking free of fixed forms and surpassing former limits. The third formula had not been so different—he had gathered the principles of many sword arts into one upon the foundation of the Middle Path. The fourth formula would likely take shape in a similar vein. Exactly how, though, he still had no clear design.
He had meant to find his way while training in the cultivation chambers—
I never expected the chambers would be closed.
More precisely, the entire training grounds used during the preliminaries had been shut down so they could be properly rebuilt as a true arena for the main tournament. In the process, the cultivation chambers inside those grounds had become unusable as well.
The Sichuan Dang Family had not closed the grounds without thought, of course.
They offered the Family's own training grounds to those who advanced to the main tournament.
Facilities inside the Dang Family's inner compound would certainly surpass what they had used before. But that also meant having every move watched by the Sichuan Dang Family—and it erased any remaining pretext for refusing their invitation.
In the end, Cheonhwa had only one choice left: accept the invitation and attend the grand banquet.
Please let there be no major trouble.
On the day of the grand banquet, Cheonhwa entered the Sichuan Dang Family's inner compound with his companions.
They had visited before to register for the Gathering, but the banquet hall lay deeper within. To admit so many guests into the interior without hesitation—did that mean they could handle a crowd of this size without strain? Once again, the Dang Family's scale left him quietly impressed.
Following a servant's lead, they arrived at a banquet venue that occupied an entire pavilion. The grounds extended beyond the building itself to the gardens outside—well-tended flowers and trees, a pond, walking paths for strolling, and even a garden pavilion set aside as a place of rest. It was plain how much effort the Sichuan Dang Family had poured into this banquet.
People already gathered in the gardens and at the garden pavilion, deep in conversation. Inside the main pavilion, even more thronged and talked. The moment the group stepped near the entrance, every eye turned toward them.
Don't mind the stares or the talk around you. Just follow the person ahead.
Jeokhwa's voice transmission cut in with the right way to handle it. Obeying her instruction, Cheonhwa fell in behind the servant and moved on.
In time they reached the seats reserved for main-tournament contestants farther inside. Others were already seated, and among them were several familiar faces.
There was Paeng Mu-jin of the Hebei Paeng Family, whom they had met at the training grounds before the preliminaries; Heogong of the Wudang Sect, who had once visited Zhongnan during a Righteous Path Journey; Cheong-ha, the prodigy of the Huashan Sect they had encountered at the Shaanxi Sword Gathering; and Iryeop, who had stood with them through the Wol-ak incident in Nonghyeon of Shaanxi Province. There were other main-tournament contenders Cheonhwa did not know—though some could be guessed by their dress.
The man in blue-based robes should be from the Namgung Family, and the one in green from the Sichuan Dang Family, as I heard.
More than half of those who had advanced belonged to the Nine Great Sects or the Five Great Noble Families—numbers that made clear the great houses of the orthodox path were no mere show.
Once every main-tournament contestant had taken a seat at the tables, Dang Tae-un rose from the place of honor. The murmur around them gradually thinned and then fell completely still. When silence held the hall, Dang Tae-un opened his mouth to speak.