Nonsense Begets Enlightenment
Danche Ryeong, the young leader of Danga Sangdan, lounged obliquely against the head seat of the room. Across from her stood another woman, ramrod straight. Hwangbo Suyeon, with skin like fresh snow and an elegant white martial robe exuding refinement.
The top-tier reception room of Danga Sangdan was filled with a suffocating silence so heavy it could crush a man. I prayed fervently for the floor to split open and swallow me whole, or for a lightning bolt to strike me unconscious right then and there.
That eternal, heart-constricting hush—finally shattered by Hwangbo Suyeon's trembling voice, as she barely regained her wits from the shock.
"Why..." Her red lips quivered, spitting out a voice like grinding metal. "Why... did you deceive me?"
Those few words brimmed with resentment and betrayal. I truly had nothing to say, not even if I had ten mouths.
How could I even begin to explain? I gulped dryly and frantically racked my brain.
The plain truth was brutally simple and pathetic: 'The legendary eccentric you revere? He's actually a loser who blew his fortune gambling and racked up debt.' That was the raw, heartbreaking fact I had to confess to Hwangbo Suyeon.
But I couldn't say it. Zing! Danche Ryeong's icy glare sliced through the air and stabbed into my nape.
Those serpent-like eyes sent me a clear, lethal silent warning. Under that wordless threat, cold sweat trickled down my spine, forcing my mouth shut.
Deprived even of the chance to speak truth, I scanned Danche Ryeong's face and hastily muddled through an excuse.
"Th-the truth is... I've received a profound debt of gratitude from Danga Sangdan and our young leader here!" I waved my hands dramatically, fabricating a nonexistent favor with exaggerated gestures.
"Back when I was in dire straits, our benevolent young leader recognized my talent and took me in."
Danche Ryeong rested her chin on her hand, a faint smile suggesting satisfaction at my clumsy flattery.
"So, to repay that noble grace, I gladly offered my pen and became Danga Sangdan's exclusive novelist." I forced a grin and nodded at Hwangbo Suyeon.
"I never meant to deceive you maliciously, Suyeon. The contract with the Sangdan includes a confidentiality clause—no way around it."
My lame, transparent excuse echoed hollowly through the reception room.
The moment she heard it, the last flicker of hope on Hwangbo Suyeon's face shattered completely. Her shoulders slumped in defeat.
She slowly lifted her bowed head. Even amid disappointment, her eyes held a stubborn reluctance to give up—a final, desperate cling to verify once more.
"Very well." Hwangbo Suyeon steadied her trembling voice, resuming her icy, rigid poise as she stared me down.
"So Teacher is no hidden eccentric. It seems I harbored vain delusions."
She acknowledged it bitterly, yet her sharp gaze pierced my eyes like daggers.
"But there's one thing my mind cannot comprehend."
"C-can't comprehend...?"
"The countless passages in Teacher's book that left me awestruck by their profound principles."
She took a step closer, dropping a weighty question. "Volume three, midway. The scene where protagonist Cheon Ujae passes a rural village, witnesses farmers threshing with flails, and gains deep enlightenment."
Ah. A memory flashed in my mind.
That scene was a clichéd "enlightenment from daily life" I'd shoehorned into volume three to pad the word count. It must've been the exact part where Hwangbo Suyeon, reading my book in the old classroom, nearly demolished everything around her in a massive breakthrough.
"That wondrous moment where Cheon Ujae discerns the principles of striking from those seemingly mundane farmers' motions." Her eyes began to ignite once more.
"If Teacher is merely an ordinary literature instructor ignorant of even the 'wu' in martial arts, how could you write such a scene?"
Her question cut straight: If you're really a fake who knows no martial arts, how did you weave such flawless martial truths into fiction?
Hearing it, I inwardly sighed in profound relief. 'Phew, dodged a bullet.'
That "flail principle" she revered so highly? It was just basic middle-school physics from my past life—centrifugal force and inertia, nothing profound.
I cleared my throat and smiled, clasping hands behind my back in literature-teacher mode from Classroom 13.
"Heh heh, Suyeon. Did you think that was some profound martial secret technique?"
My leisurely retort furrowed her brow slightly.
"It's not a martial principle at all. It's simply the 'natural law' governing how all things in this world move."
To make it digestible, I filtered modern science through murim vernacular and explained slowly.
"Recall how farmers thresh barley or beans with their flails." I raised a hand, miming a light swing in the air.
"A mere flick of the wrist spins the long pole, and the branches at the end whip with terrifying destructive power from rotational force."
Hwangbo Suyeon tracked my gesture intently. Danche Ryeong, from her seat, leaned forward with interest, ears perked.
"A rotating object gains a tendency to fly outward from its axis. Thus, a small wrist motion amplifies into immense speed and weight at the tip."
I emphasized with a firm voice. "And here's the crucial core: What happens if you suddenly 'stop' the handle—just as that fearsome flail nears the grain?"
Her eyes wavered at my question. "'Stop' it...?"
"Exactly! When the axis—the handle—abruptly halts, the spinning branches fiercely resist, desperate to continue in their original path!" I clenched a fist and slammed the air.
"That forward momentum converges into a force several times stronger and more merciless than usual, smashing the grain."
Hwangbo Suyeon's lips parted slightly. Her genius martial mind visibly absorbed my words like a sponge, computations raging.
"The principle of massive impact from minimal force. As a scholar of writing, I defined these two clear natural laws in prose."
I puffed up pretentiously, proclaiming modern science's grand terms to this murim world for the first time.
"I call them 'centrifugal force' and 'inertia.'"
"Centrifugal force... and inertia..." Hwangbo Suyeon murmured blankly, entranced.
Her gaze fixed on me, but unfocused—drifting into distant voids beyond my face.
This vibe's getting weird. A foreboding chill crawled up my spine; I instinctively stepped back.
And sure enough—whummm.
The heavy air in the room vibrated strangely around her, churning wildly.
"Damn it... again?!" A curse slipped out unbidden.
She'd vaguely imagined and instinctively embodied the flail principle before. Now, my clear scientific theory logically unpacked it—blasting open her blockages for a second massive enlightenment.
Whoooosh! Her aura, subdued earlier by Danche Ryeong, erupted into an uncontrollable storm ravaging the room.
"Newton's laws sparking martial enlightenment? This can't be real!" I clutched my throbbing head, pressing my temples, nearly collapsing.
Danche Ryeong, watching from her seat, shot up in undisguised shock. Wary of the swirling energy, she eyed me alternately with a bizarre, eerie glint.
No! I just explained middle-school science! Utterly wronged to the point of tears, but no time for excuses now.
How much time passed? The colossal blue energy, threatening to shred the room, miraculously subsided.
Hwangbo Suyeon, fully retracting it into her dantian, slowly opened her eyes. The fierce azure gleam faded from their depths, replaced by unfathomable profundity beyond compare.
Swish. Without hesitation, she sprang up and strode toward me, dropping to her knees on the cold floor for a deep, formal bow.
"I am grateful to my bones for Teacher's precious teachings."
Her voice trembled faintly, overflowing with irrepressible joy and reverence.
"Uh... y-yeah, rise... get up, Suyeon."
I stammered in panic, helping her up. As our eyes met post-bow, a shiver iced my spine again.
Her gaze was utterly unhinged. Fanatic zeal. To her now, whether I was a mere teacher, a debt-dodging fraud, or a legendary eccentric meant nothing.
I was simply the benefactor who'd shattered enlightenment's wall with mere words—the unheard-of perfect theories of "centrifugal force" and "inertia."
At that moment—midnight black as pitch, where even moonlight barely pierced the gloom.
A desperate silhouette raced madly along the treacherous mountain path. Tat, tat! Torn rags, shredded by branches, flapped in the night wind.
Her body was riddled with gruesome gashes and stabs; dark crimson blood oozed, spotting the trail.
"Hah... hah..." Breath ragged to the brink, lungs screaming in agony.
Her feet, climbing relentlessly steep inclines, grew leaden—like slogging through mud.
Yet the young woman's eyes blazed undimmed in the dark, not mere survival instinct, but mad obsession to reach her goal.
"Must... go... somehow, must get there..." She gnashed cracked lips, clutching protruding rocks with bloodied hands, clawing upward.
Why this frantic flight for a fugitive?
How long in that hellish torment? Finally, gasping, her steps halted.
Had darkness led her astray? Ahead loomed a ghastly dead end—no path forward.
She teetered perilously at the sheer Manjangae cliff's edge, clouds swirling far below.
But no panic of being lost. Instead, a brief sigh of relief—she'd arrived precisely.
"This is the place."
She staggered to the precipice, peering cautiously into the abyss.
Endless, overwhelming void. Yet she didn't recoil. Resolve hardened her face—ready to cast all aside.
Head thrown back to the starry void, she murmured a blood-oath vow.
"No way to avenge my clan, slaughtered by those Sapa villains... not with my paltry martial arts."
Blood-tears streamed from her eyes.
"But if heaven aids me... if that great fortune slumbers here! Grant me the overwhelming power for vengeance!"
Fists clenched to breaking. In her bosom, a tattered, blood-soaked book clutched dear.
"Once this wretched revenge ends, my remaining life and soul—for the great 'Him' who penned this book alone."
Mad faith, a death-defying final gamble.
And in the next instant—without a shred of hesitation—she hurled herself into the yawning, horrific darkness below.
That monstrous cliff she'd leapt from in blind belief? None other than the site shaking Henan lands with dopamine frenzy—the finale of Regressor Sword God, This Life Fist King volume four.
Where protagonist Cheon Ujae, bloodied from ghost-fiends' assault, plummeted into fortune's embrace: the Manjangae cliff.