Inki-jeongong
Inki-jeongong.
At Jinmyung’s words the spectator stands stirred. Elders from every sect exchanged glances and traded sound transmissions among themselves.
An art that draws money in to cultivate qi…
Yeon Hochun stroked the beard along his jaw as he considered it. The disciples around him sent quiet messages back and forth, debating the nature of Jinmyung’s martial art.
The last war had erased many sects and, with them, far more martial arts. In the long years spent hunting and reconstructing those lost techniques, something entirely new had appeared.
The martial artists in the stands had already forgotten the duel of the Northern Dipper Fist-and-Staff. Even Moyong Ran herself, the Northern Dipper Fist-and-Staff, now fixed her full attention on Jinmyung’s match.
He’s been cultivating a martial art…?
Jinmyung settled into the same horse stance as before. The only difference was that he no longer planted his weight fully into the earth. Left hand aimed at Taeshin, right fist hidden behind his back, he faced the swordsman. Taeshin adjusted his breathing while the tip of his blade swayed; Jinmyung’s left hand mirrored every motion of that tip.
When the murmur of the crowd finally quieted, Jinmyung stamped his right foot and charged. The fist that had been concealed behind him shot forward in a straight line, aimed at Taeshin’s hand.
Taeshin stepped into the Azure Cloud Step and slipped left of Jinmyung’s path. He clicked his tongue, annoyed that the initiative had been stolen.
Jinmyung used the momentum of his rush to spin. While turning he snapped out a rapid series of short punches.
I’ve been caught. The Azure Cloud Step can’t create distance.
Jinmyung’s attacks were not, in truth, particularly sophisticated. Yet the mere announcement of a new martial art had made Taeshin relax for a single heartbeat, and in that heartbeat Jinmyung closed the gap. At fist range rather than sword range, Taeshin had no choice but to defend. Jinmyung gave him no opening, firing short punches and recovering them just as quickly.
The chain of strikes continued without pause, yet Taeshin endured with stubborn patience, turning each blow aside with the flat of his blade.
When Jinmyung’s next stomp landed a fraction heavier, Taeshin sensed the sequence was ending. The man intended to finish the assault and withdraw. No master, however skilled, can attack forever. Internal energy travels the body on the breath; the moment between inhaling and exhaling is the natural joint of any combination.
Jinmyung’s linked assault had been sustained on a single long breath, and now that breath was spent. His right fist, sheathed in golden radiance, drove toward Taeshin.
A sharp crack of ruptured air rang out. Taeshin was forced five paces backward. He had deflected the strike, yet its weight still drove him away.
As though claiming his turn, Taeshin stepped into the Clear Wind Step and hid his sword behind his leg, preparing the Plum Blossom Falling Flash that would close the distance in a single lunge. Yet he, too, needed a moment to steady his breath. Something was wrong. When he drew up his internal energy he discovered far less remained than he had expected.
“What technique was that?” he asked the man still regulating his breathing.
“It is called Pasan-gwon,” Jinmyung answered. “The Bankruptcy Fist.”
The surest way to subdue a martial artist is to seal the meridians. Jinmyung recalled a treatise from the Zhuge Clan’s library that he had once read. Breath moves internal force along the meridians; the circulation of that force strengthens the body—that is internal energy. Seal the meridians and the force is blocked; the martial artist is subdued.
Easy to say. The Zhuge text had laid out the theory with elegant clarity. Internal energy flows through the meridians. To seal those pathways one needs either superior internal energy, poison, or open wounds. And while dodging the trained movements of a martial artist, one must still strike the precise points. Who does not know that hanging a bell on a cat’s neck would solve the problem of the mouse?
When Jinmyung created the form he had tried to embed that principle. To him a technique was simply a convenient vessel for internal energy and a method of raising the odds that an attack would land.
Every time the energy he raised from his dantian traveled a major meridian, he felt it diminish—exactly as one pays transport fees when goods move from village to village. Pasan-gwon was built on the idea of inflating those transport fees. Like bandits of the green forest who block a vital pass and demand tolls, the fist poured residual energy into the opponent’s body and pressed upon every vital point.
Taeshin felt his reserves dwindling because he had blocked the Bankruptcy Fist. Had he simply avoided every punch, he would never have noticed the shortage.
As they faced each other and recovered their breath, Taeshin realized how difficult it had become to wrap his body in internal energy. At this rate he could not fight at full strength.
He wrestled with the problem. Ordinary folk might argue endlessly over victory or defeat in a spar, yet the great sects of the Murim Alliance placed little weight on any single result. Fortune decided each bout; martial arts possessed affinities and counters; absolute supremacy did not exist. That was why the head of the Diancang Sect had declined to compete at all.
Still, the honor of champion of the Mt. Hua Sword Debate mattered—especially to Taeshin, chief disciple of the Mt. Hua Sect.
Dang Sohye had merely tested the mutual affinities of their arts and then conceded the match; the crowd had still praised both her and Moyong Ran. Yet Taeshin kept inventing excuses inside his own head, trying to quiet the competitive fire that refused to die.
At last, uncertain what to do, he looked toward the center of the stands. His master Yeon Hochun was smiling down at him. That smile decided him.
“It seems a prolonged fight will be difficult. There is one form I have always wanted to display on this sparring ground… Shall we settle the match with the next exchange?”
“Then if I receive that next exchange, the victory is mine; if I fail, I lose. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
The moment Taeshin finished speaking, Jinmyung settled once more into the horse stance of the opening. Taeshin adjusted his own posture and gripped his sword anew.
That stance… has he completed it?
Yeon Hochun recognized at once what his disciple intended. Yet Taeshin hesitated, then sheathed the blade.
In the middle of a duel a swordsman who puts away his sword is all but admitting defeat. Jinmyung, however, did not relax his stance, and Taeshin likewise reset his footing. The only change was that he now held a knife-hand instead of steel.
He drew a long breath and moved.
Both the Clear Wind Step and the Azure Cloud Step were signature footwork of the Mt. Hua Sect; which one a practitioner used depended on the art being performed. Techniques that prized speed employed the Clear Wind Step; those that prized power employed the Azure Cloud Step. At a certain level, of course, a fighter like Taeshin could wield both. The Mt. Hua elders in the stands watched his Clear Wind Step and frowned.
Taeshin was walking the Clear Wind Step as slowly as the Azure Cloud Step—as slowly as a novice first learning the form, and growing slower still.
When he finally reached Jinmyung’s immediate presence, his feet stopped altogether. Only Yeon Hochun continued to gaze down with unshaken faith.
The moment Taeshin entered range, Jinmyung wrapped his entire body in internal energy until a faint golden light shimmered around him.
Taeshin’s foot began to rise with glacial deliberation. The crowd held its breath, waiting for the instant of the strike. Most of them never saw it.
The Clear Wind Step that had been so deliberately slow suddenly exploded forward, erasing every earlier hesitation. Even Jinmyung lost track of the man. All he could see was the knife-hand. Taeshin’s right hand carved first across Jinmyung’s right shoulder, then his left flank in unbroken succession.
A ringing clash, then another. Protective Qi turned the blows aside, yet Jinmyung clenched his teeth against the shock. The successive sword-like strikes continued. After the first two, however, each subsequent cut was withdrawn at the exact point where it met the rebounding force of the Protective Qi—just as in the opening of the duel. Jinmyung understood that if the sequence had been allowed to finish, he would have lost.
Taeshin stood several paces beyond him, gasping. Even with his internal energy drained by the aftereffects of the Bankruptcy Fist, he had forced the form through to its end on pure stubbornness.
“What is the name of that technique?”
“…The final form of the Lotus Yearning Dance: Clear Wind and Bright Moon.”
The Lotus Yearning Dance was a sword art newly created by Yeon Hochun. He had named it for the dance that remembered the fellow disciples who had fallen on Lotus Peak, deliberately setting it apart from the traditional Plum Blossom Sword. Most Mt. Hua arts emphasized either the principle of illusion that conceals an attack or the principle of dispersion that strikes many points at once. The Lotus Yearning Dance, built upon the speed of the Clear Wind Step, hid its strikes while delivering them in continuous succession, uniting both principles into something new. Yeon Hochun had founded it out of grief for the many Plum Blossom swordsmen who had died to the heavy weapons and fire-bombs of the old empire during the battle of Lotus Peak.
“A form worthy of the Mt. Hua Sword Debate. I have learned much.”
“I acknowledge my defeat. Yet the lotus of Mt. Hua blooms twice. Next time I will not lose.”
Jinmyung and Taeshin clasped fists in salute and ended the match. Both wore expressions that were less than satisfied.
I won the bout… yet the accounts do not balance.
He had taken the match, but felt he had lost the true contest. In the duel with Taeshin, Jinmyung had surrendered a great deal. The strategy of concealing his own information while extracting maximum effect from knowledge of the opponent had been broken. He had been forced to use the martial art itself. Worse, he had never intended to reveal even his identity. The situation had grown dangerous.
In the past, merchant caravans had been purged for a simple reason: their support had helped found the new dynasty. If a force of comparable military strength received the backing of a great trading house, the leap of logic was easy—another dynasty might arise. And Jinmyung now stood, by the emperor’s tacit permission, inside the Murim Alliance, a body that possessed military power of its own. Chang’an, in other words, was a gray zone. If word reached the imperial palace that he had climbed Mt. Hua and entered the Sword Debate, no one could predict what would follow.
Carrying these tangled thoughts, Jinmyung walked down from the sparring ground. In the corridor that led to the waiting rooms a woman stood watching him with a faintly startled expression.
Jinmyung set the thoughts aside with a quiet acceptance of the inevitable. Whatever the risks, he had still needed to prove himself to her.
He passed Moyong Ran and continued out of the sparring arena.