Have You No Shame?
Yi Yeok rose into the air and drove his leg down, swift as lightning.
The air burst aside with a detonating crack — a single blow fierce enough to punch through solid iron.
Bo Do took a pull from his liquor bottle, grinned crookedly, and said,
"Not bad."
Yi Yeok, who had only finished his training the day before, was brimming with confidence. In that short span he had already climbed past Daoist and reached the realm of Dao Master.
"Of course. Sometimes I'm so good it's a problem."
Three Seon monks showed themselves — Bo Beop, Bo U, and Bo Hae.
Yi Yeok smiled.
"Looks like it's time I was going."
Bo Beop came forward, slipped the white jade prayer beads from his wrist, and held them out.
"You have learned the martial arts of our Daelim Temple, yet we set no binding on your soul. Remember this, though. The Buddhist path does not tolerate the Daoist, and the Daoist path does not tolerate the Buddhist. From here on, the road is yours alone."
Yi Yeok took the beads and bowed deeply from the waist.
"I won't forget what you monks have done for me."
Bo Beop, plainly pleased, stroked his head.
"Keep yourself well. And when the world has need of your hand, don't hesitate to give it."
Bo Do set a light hand on Yi Yeok's shoulder.
"Let's go."
He stepped onto the empty air and rose. The speed was tremendous, and yet it was nothing like Yi Yeok's own swiftness.
Yi Yeok looked back one last time, and he felt it. Daelim Temple was dying, just as the mountain that held it was dying. For the first time, regret and a quiet sorrow seeped into a heart that had always been optimistic. No matter how many farewells he had endured before — even when he parted from the old Flying Blade — he had been able to smile as if it were nothing. They would meet again someday, after all.
He asked, low,
"Will I be able to see you monks again?"
Bo Do smiled strangely.
"Hard to leave, is it?"
"Not exactly. I'm just worried that the next time I show up, I'll be here to collect your corpses."
"You came empty-handed, and you'll go empty-handed. What are you clutching so tight? Live however you want to live."
It was a long while before Yi Yeok spoke again.
"You monks aren't like the others I met in the Western Region."
"We are. Daoist or Buddhist, neither can ever wipe out the wickedness at the root of a human being. My martial brothers and I have watched a great many things over a long span of years, and that's what we came to see."
Bo Do sighed.
"If you can only break this mind-control conversion art of Tasa Temple, the Buddhist orders will stay quiet for a while. They won't go to war with the Seongdo Immortal Sect in the meantime."
Yi Yeok said nothing. He only felt something ring, deep inside him. He scoffed at it — there was no such thing — and yet the world plainly held people without a selfish bone in them. It was people like that who kept the world from losing its light. Because of them a warmth still moved through it, and people did not have to wander lost.
Bo Do said quietly,
"When we reach Tasa Temple, spare your words. Use your eyes."
"Nothing to worry about. If you can't hold out, I'll bring you out myself."
He took another swallow of liquor and fixed his gaze ahead, calm and utterly set.
Yi Yeok nodded.
"Understood."
A few days later, Yi Yeok looked down. A city of staggering scale spread beneath his feet, and at its heart a great mountain rose sheer. From the temple seated on the summit, a faint light spilled out in every direction. He stared, caught by it. It was as if countless stars had gathered to ring the moon.
Bo Do dropped their altitude and set down with him before the gates of Tasa Temple.
A monk guarding the gate came forward, contempt thick in his eyes — for Yi Yeok, of course, and for Bo Do's shabby figure as well. Bo Do set aside his usual lightness and spoke evenly.
"Bo Do of Daelim Temple."
"Wait."
Only after a long while did a monk sent to receive guests come down the mountain path.
"To think even Daelim Temple would show its face."
He offered no greeting at all.
Bo Do answered, unruffled.
"The future of the Buddhist orders hangs on this. How could we stay away?"
"Come up. And who is that beside you?"
"They say Tasa Temple's mind-control art is something extraordinary, so I dragged along just anyone to have a look."
The monk's brows shot up, but he asked nothing more.
"Follow me."
Yi Yeok followed Monk Bo Do up the mountain path, taking in the surroundings as they climbed. Unlike Daelim Temple, even the brush along the path had been trimmed neat and clean. Before long the two of them reached the summit and stepped into the Mahavira Hall. The hall, vast as a public square, was already packed with monks.
In Yi Yeok's arms, Heukmok trembled. Of all places — walking in of my own free will, straight into a den of monks. A high Buddhist order, no less.
At the center of the hall sat an old monk, and behind his head Yi Yeok saw a halo. The two monks seated to either side of him bore the same. They looked, for all the world, like living buddhas.
Bo Do kept Yi Yeok with him by the door. Those nearby who recognized Bo Do quietly drew back, their eyes a strange mix of fear and contempt.
The old monk, halo shining, lectured in a solemn voice. The sermon was thick with Buddhist terms — the Four Noble Truths, the Six Paths of Reincarnation, the Eight Precepts — and Yi Yeok could not understand a word of it. In the end he gave up and looked around instead. Aside from himself and Bo Do, every monk in the Mahavira Hall seemed to belong to the high Buddhist orders: Tasa Temple, Gwanseong Temple, and Samsaeng Temple. Even at a glance they were formidable experts. Alone, he would not even have been able to run.
How long had passed? Drowsiness crept over him. His eyelids grew heavy, and one yawn followed another.
Then, at last, Bo Do stepped forward. He planted himself in the center of the Mahavira Hall and shouted.
Heukmok whispered from inside Yi Yeok's arms.
"Walking corpses and running meat, if I may — it means a corpse that walks, and a hunk of flesh that scurries about."
"Shut up, Heukmok."
The old monk seated at the center — Beop Gong, abbot of Tasa Temple — murmured Amitabha and said,
"Chan Master Bo Do seems displeased with this matter."
"Displeased? Greatly. Our Buddhist way hopes the people of the world will respect themselves and live free. How can you call it salvation to brainwash a person by force and drag them onto the Buddhist path? To save people is to ease their pain and their sorrow. It is not to force your will on them."
All fell silent, and watched his words go on.
"Lower your heads and look at yourselves! Monks who ought to live in honest poverty, free of desire — and yet even the robes and ceremonial kasaya on your backs are treasures no one could price, are they not? You wring the blood-and-sweat coin out of others, you feast and live in luxury, and with what face do you speak of saving people? Wouldn't it be more honest to say you're saving yourselves, and making yourselves rich?"
Bo Do raised his voice.