Inki-jeongong (3)
Once Jinmyung finished preparing to leave, he sent Ak Jun to Namgung Hyeon. Then he headed straight for the Moyong family's lodgings.
Moyong Ran received him in the garden of the residence. As if she had expected his arrival, she waited not in the martial attire of the sparring grounds but in formal dress.
A plum tree stood planted at the center of the garden. Beneath its branches, which seemed to cradle the sinking sun, Moyong Ran had turned her back to him.
There was not a breath of wind, yet the plum blossoms scattered and drifted, adorning the evening glow. Jinmyung thought that everything beneath that tree — Moyong Ran included — looked like a single painted scroll.
"You asked for me?"
Moyong Ran spoke without so much as turning her head. Jinmyung answered without concern.
"My plans have changed. I've come to challenge you to a bridal spar."
"Not at the finals, but now?"
"It need not be this very moment. But I don't believe I'll be able to compete in the finals."
Moyong Ran could not make sense of his behavior. From everything she had heard of Jinmyung, he was shrewd enough to persuade an emperor.
She had broken their prenatal betrothal under various pretexts, believing he would grasp the truth behind it.
Her grandfather, Moyong Seong, had restored a clan left with nothing but ashes. He had many children of his own and urged his blood kin to have many as well.
After the death of Moyong Man — Moyong Ran's father and the eldest son — that urging became compulsion. The clan members pressed Moyong Seong to adopt a collateral relative as heir, to ensure the family's continuation.
But from childhood, Moyong Ran had displayed a talent for martial arts that crushed even her older cousins. Moyong Seong could not bring himself to set her aside.
In the end, he resolved to find a live-in son-in-law. Yet the man bound to Moyong Ran by prenatal betrothal — Go Jinmyung — was a brilliant young heir who had persuaded the emperor at a tender age.
If the betrothal proceeded, the Moyong clan would vanish. To break it, however, would be to betray a debt of gratitude.
After long deliberation, Moyong Seong decided to dissolve the engagement at the Mt. Hua Sword Debate. Only Moyong Ran was gifted enough to inherit his signature art, the Northern Dipper Divine Fist.
The same held true for Go Jinmyung. From the moment his bargain spared the merchant group from the emperor's purge, the succession of the trading house had been all but settled.
And Moyong Ran was certain Jinmyung could not be ignorant of any of this.
"I made it clear that I would take as my husband only a man strong enough to defeat me. With the martial arts you have learned, you cannot best me."
"Won't we have to measure long against short to know for certain?"
"You saw my spar with Jakbong, I trust. The result will be the same."
During Jinmyung's match, Moyong Ran had watched carefully as the First Sword of Mt. Hua discarded his blade and fought barehanded. In the short-breathed opening forms, Taeshin had reached the realm of Sword Qi Coating.
Yet in the final form, even after abandoning the sword, he had failed to manifest sword qi mid-technique. From this, Moyong Ran had discerned that Jinmyung's martial art carried the effect of assaulting an opponent's internal energy.
"Must you insist on the penalty cup when the toast of victory is offered?"
"If it is wine poured by the young lady, even a penalty cup would taste sweet."
Just what is this man thinking… Moyong Ran sighed and turned around, as if she had no choice.
"Very well. Let us hold the bridal spar here and now. If you can lift my veil, I will take you as my husband."
"You're not in martial dress. Will that be all right?"
"I will not move from this spot. And I will only defend."
Jinmyung looked at Moyong Ran with a puzzled expression. She met his gaze with unyielding eyes.
Jinmyung dusted off his hands and settled into the stance of the Pasan-gwon. Moyong Ran, by contrast, assumed no stance at all. She simply clasped both hands before her dantian and faced him.
Jinmyung found it strange, but he had no small confidence in his own art. Inki-jeongong ran on an entirely different track from ordinary martial arts, which convert the vital essence of nature into internal energy through breathing.
He had created Inki-jeongong right after the previous Mt. Hua Sword Debate. The tales of the finals between Changcheon Geomryong Namgung Jin and Yeolhyeol Hwaryong Paeng Jeonghyeon had kept him on the edge of his seat.
In their final forms, both rising talents had attacked each other at the level of Sword Qi Coating. The storyteller claimed that the flames wreathed around the Hot-Blooded Fire Dragon's saber had burned the Sky-Cleaving Sword Dragon's upper garments to ash.
Jinmyung had scolded the man — how could a person's energy become fire? The storyteller answered that just as the vital essence of all things in the world becomes internal energy through breath, so too can internal energy take on the nature of all things in the world.
Jinmyung decided that of all things under heaven, nothing mattered more to people than money. If money held energy, then that energy could be forged into internal power. And so he created Inki-jeongong.
Once he could accumulate internal energy, he advised the storytellers and built up spare capital. Vast sums of gold and silver were absorbed into Jinmyung's inner power.
The Pasan-gwon — the Bankruptcy Fist — was a form he devised after observing how the energy of money repelled the energy of nature. He believed its principle could answer any martial art, and he trusted that belief completely.
That was why he had no idea how to respond to Moyong Ran's approach. One thing, however, was certain…
If I'd meant to turn back like this, I never would have come at all.
Jinmyung unleashed the Pasan-gwon. His right fist, wreathed in a golden radiance, swept past Moyong Ran's left cheek as if merely grazing it.
He had expected the wind pressure alone to scatter her veil. But the Bankruptcy Fist did not even produce a sound of parting air.
"Kh—?!"
Instead, Jinmyung staggered several steps backward as though someone had driven a fist into his left chest. From that distance he watched Moyong Ran lower her raised left hand and clasp it once more with her right.
She had clearly used some technique — and he had… taken his own Bankruptcy Fist. The alien energy coursing through his meridians confirmed it.
"What… in the world…?"
"The defensive absolute of the Northern Dipper Divine Fist. It is called Dujeon Seong-i — Shifting Stars."
Moyong Ran spoke the name of the form with quiet composure. But for Jinmyung, hearing it was devastating.
Dujeon Seong-i meant "even the Northern Dipper itself is turned." It was a defensive form that returned an opponent's attack exactly as it came. With this technique, Moyong Seong had earned the title of Fist Emperor on battlefields thick with weapons.
The reason Moyong Ran had not used Shifting Stars in the public spars was simple: she, too, had been concealing three-tenths of her true ability. Then why use it now?
Jinmyung guessed it was because she rejected marriage to him that forcefully. Of course, he understood the circumstances of both families perfectly well…
"To invent an entirely new martial art before even coming of age… I find that remarkable."
Moyong Ran spoke, sensing that his will to fight had broken.
"But Young Master Go's art leans so heavily on heart and energy that the forms of the body are crude. A man who is not even of the Murim, training alone — it could hardly be otherwise."
"…"
"The forms of a proper school are refined through the trial and error of countless predecessors, passed down across generations. And each new generation learns them through bone-grinding practice."
"…"
Jinmyung listened to her words in silence.
"I lost my father young and built my martial arts on the battlefield to inherit the family headship. I have faced you with the finest form I possess… so I trust you will understand the heart contained within it."
Moyong Ran clasped her hands in a formal bow and issued her dismissal. But Jinmyung could not leave like this.
"The young lady of Moyong is right. Inki-jeongong is still an unfinished art… And so, though you expressed your heart through the form of Shifting Stars…"
Jinmyung found it hard to continue. Whether from the aftermath of taking his own Bankruptcy Fist, or from the knowledge that his bond with Moyong Ran was about to be severed, he could not tell.
"I failed to put my whole heart into it. And so, though it shames me, I wish to propose a transaction — as a merchant."
"…"
Moyong Ran kept her bow and only lifted her head to look at him.
"At a young age I left my family and had to live alone in a foreign place. That was the price of a bargain."
Moyong Ran knew as well that after his deal with the emperor, Jinmyung had left the merchant group and come to Chang'an.
"My family's faces have grown hazy, but every year I could look upon the young lady of Moyong's portrait. I heard the stories of how you trained from childhood until your fists were raw, and of how you fought the remnants of the old empire on the battlefield."
"…"
"What heart did she carry into battle? They said she was wounded — has her body recovered? Alone, I would ask these things of the portrait. And a few days ago, when I first saw you in person, I realized that I had been in love with you all along."
Jinmyung's words were growing faster. The family precept that a merchant must always speak with composure had long since been forgotten.
"Please… I will give you half of my life. Will you give me half of yours?"
When he finished speaking, Jinmyung's face was flushed a deep red. Moyong Ran straightened her posture, faced him, and answered with resolute eyes.
"You did not… pass the trial. So I do not believe we can share a lifetime. I am sorry."
"…"
"But… since I have long held a place in the young master's heart… I will set aside a corner of my own heart for him as well."
Moyong Ran bowed once more, asking him to leave. Jinmyung returned the bow, turned, and walked back toward his lodgings.
The moment Jinmyung stepped beyond the garden, Moyong Ran touched the face behind her veil. Her cheeks burned even hotter than his had.