Four Ounces Deflects a Thousand Pounds (5)
Four Ounces Deflects a Thousand Pounds (5)
"You always kept such a strict barrier against worldly things, but in the end, you were just a woman after all, Senior Martial Sister."
What greeted Hong Ye upon her return to the sect was the biting sarcasm of her junior martial sister. Backed by the covert support of the elders, the junior martial sister—though only a direct disciple and a junior—adopted an insolent attitude even toward her senior martial sister. Just as the sect elders respected the Grandmaster while disliking the way he ran the sect, the younger disciples, whose martial skills had grown quickly but whose minds had not yet matured, were turning into worldly people who only paid lip service to sect hierarchy.
"I never knew that you, Senior Martial Sister, wished to get close to the Zhuge Family before anyone else."
But now, she no longer felt anger toward her junior martial sister or the elders. Stepping back a pace, she saw that this sect was no different from the lowlifes of Chengdu. Even if one lives apart from the secular world, one remains human, and humans cannot escape the five desires and seven emotions.
She herself was no different.
She had wanted to be acknowledged, had wanted to lead this sect and prove herself, so she had struggled endlessly. She had tried to throw herself into the dirtiest core of power—the very thing a direct disciple of the Taiji Sect should distance herself from most. But from a step back, such things were nothing at all.
"Had you given me a hint, I would have gladly conceded. You must have felt stifled by an oblivious junior martial sister and junior disciples."
The junior martial sister's mouth would not stop. Was she planning to use this walk as a weakness to toy with her as she pleased? The disciples milling around were pretending not to care about the two's war of nerves, yet their ears were wide open. The junior martial sister's eyes glinted with aggression, as if daring her to make an excuse.
"You are right."
And Hong Ye nodded. When she acknowledged her own flaw, the junior martial sister's face looked flustered instead. Her wide-eyed, blinking expression suited her age far better than her previous spiteful demeanor.
Hong Ye was still clumsy at making expressions.
Because her face naturally stiffened, rather than changing her expression, she raised her hand. All the sect disciples tensed up, and the junior martial sister, who had confidently confronted her, shrank back.
But Hong Ye's hand did not strike down on her crown. It gently stroked her head and then rested on her shoulder. The junior martial sister, who had squeezed her eyes shut and left an opening, only then peeked through one eye to gauge Hong Ye's mood.
"You still lack practical combat experience. Closing your eyes is the same as presenting an opening to your opponent."
The junior martial sister's face flushed bright red. She fumed but could not find words, so she turned her head away.
Hong Ye left her junior martial sister where she stood and turned away. The junior martial sister would probably become a better Taijiquan practitioner than herself one day, for those honest with their emotions find it easier to find their own path.
Hong Ye swept her gaze over the expressions around her. The nearby disciples were looking at Hong Ye with incomprehension. Hong Ye had no intention of making excuses to them one by one. And then, those blank stares made her think of one man.
[Why did you raise me?]
A man she had never given a proper answer to, a man the elders all looked at with incomprehension. And a man who had heaped a heavy burden upon her heart.
Hong Ye directed her steps toward the room where the Grandmaster trained.
*******
Empty lot.
An ordinary person stepping into the Grandmaster's training ground for the first time could only describe the vacant space in those words.
The Grandmaster's training ground had no distinctive features, nor any decorations whatsoever.
This went beyond a display of simplicity; it was the re-creation of a mind that had transcended the five desires and seven emotions.
There were no windows and no lamps. Even the door was made loosely to serve only minimal function, making it inconvenient to open or close.
The Grandmaster was sitting still in the middle of that room, eyes closed.
Inside the dark room, when Hong Ye opened the door, an elongated shaft of light entered along with it. The head of Hong Ye's shadow faced the Grandmaster. The Grandmaster spoke with his eyes still closed.
"Your energy has changed."
"Grandmaster."
The Grandmaster fell silent. He still would not open his eyes. But she could sense that the energy dominating the room had stiffened. Hong Ye entered the room and closed the door. The windowless room plunged them both into suffocating darkness.
The Grandmaster opened his mouth as if he had been waiting for this darkness.
"For what have you come to seek me?"
Hong Ye tried to locate the Grandmaster. She attempted to align her body with the source of the voice, but then simply chose the path of closing her eyes. The stuffy air unique to an enclosed space flowed through the impenetrable darkness.
Hong Ye somehow felt that now, the Grandmaster would answer any question she asked. It felt as if he could now give her the answers to the questions that had echoed back like hollow reverberations whenever she had called out to him before. She asked.
"Why did you raise me?"
Silence hung. The air inside the room swirled like a rapid current slicing through a valley. Hong Ye hated the uniquely rough and stifling flow that could only be felt in this room. When she inhaled, the air smelled of stale wood, and when she closed her eyes, sounds resounded within the darkness.
As if to drive out the stillness, Hong Ye asked once more.
"Why did you raise me? Why did you ever take in the petty and despised blood of the southern barbarians as your child and elevate me to direct disciple?"
As she asked, Hong Ye felt the emotions she had felt all this time rising again. Even if those actions now seemed like nothing but foolishness, the life she had lived, caught up in and tormented by that foolishness, could not be erased. Hong Ye felt her voice thicken.
"Four ounces deflects a thousand pounds."
The Grandmaster's voice followed. It was the answer she had finally obtained after posing the question for over ten years.
But Hong Ye opened her eyes wide, unable to comprehend the words that had echoed, overlapping with her own voice. In the darkness, her expression crumbled without hesitation. Because she could not see his face, she could be honest instead.
"What on earth...."
When one realization came, another question entered her mind. Cultivation was said to be a repetition of question and realization, but the question that had entered her mind now was one whose very direction she could not predict. How could a saying everyone had heard countless times, a saying whose profound principle everyone knew through and through, be repeated here again?
"I, I believed in that power."
She could not even understand his words. Hong Ye cast her gaze toward where the Grandmaster must be. But the Grandmaster's face was invisible, and she could not know what kind of expression he was wearing.
"But understanding people is, for me, a more difficult task than understanding martial arts."
The Grandmaster's words swirled in Hong Ye's head. She knew the Grandmaster was still seated in that very spot, yet she felt an illusion as if the Grandmaster was stepping backwards, growing distant.
"So it seems I have placed many burdens upon you. I have no face to show you."
It was not the apology she had hoped for. Nor was it the answer she had desired. Nothing was resolved to her satisfaction, and only questions bloomed thickly in Hong Ye's heart.
'Four ounces deflects a thousand pounds'
The very foundation of Taijiquan, that saying everyone knew, now swirled within her as a question.
Deolkeong!
The door opened.
Though the Grandmaster did not answer, she realized this was an order to leave.
******
A night when worries deepened. As Hong Ye sat in her room, lost in thought, one of the low-ranking disciples knocked on the door. It was a child who had just entered the sect and was repeating chores and basic training. He called for Hong Ye in a youthful voice.
"Senior Martial Sister Hong Ye. A letter has arrived."
"Leave it there."
Hong Ye tilted her head at the word "letter" but opened the door. As soon as the door opened, a letter in a neat case caught on the threshold and made a Tuk! sound. Hong Ye picked up the letter and unfolded it.
[Unable to sleep for thoughts of you, I send this letter.
Hong Ye, when I think of you, my heart burns so and I know not what to do.
I have a fine idea regarding marriage, so read this to the end.
The Dragon Phoenix Gathering is not far off; at that event,
we shall reveal that we have long exchanged intimate sentiments through letters.
If we openly declare our romance at a gathering of promising rising talents,
how could even the Grandmaster oppose it?
So, Hong Ye, when you come to the Dragon Phoenix Gathering, apply makeup to make your skin a little fairer....]
Hong Ye tore the letter to shreds. The contents that followed were not worth reading.
Thinking back on it now, it had been such a foolish act. Stepping back one pace and looking,
she was still a disciple who followed the teachings of the Taiji Sect.
She had the duty to uprightly carry on the righteousness and chivalry that the Taiji Sect had safeguarded,
yet just because her own standing was being shaken and wicked people were gossiping,
she had considered secretly colluding with that filthy Venerable Geumbok's band.
She gazed for a moment at the torn pieces of the letter, then yanked open a drawer. She grabbed all the letters exchanged with the Zhongnan Sect that had been kept inside, crumpling and tearing them up as well. Before long, the room was filled with unidentifiable white clumps of paper as if snow had fallen.
Amidst the thin shards of paper fluttering in the air, Hong Ye sat down and began to write out a letter.
[While I have been here, someone else has found a place in my heart.]
Hong Ye, who had written down that far, suddenly found Docheol's face floating into her mind.
She could not tell why.
The room was filled with the scent of ink from the torn paper, along with the subtle fragrance of an incense pouch.