Chapter 29. Nine Yang Divine Art
Chapter 29. Nine Yang Divine Art
Motel owner Gwanggeun had two things he was proud of.
Thirty years ago, when he introduced himself as a motel owner, plenty of people looked down on him or sneered at him.
But people who actually knew a thing or two envied him more than anyone now.
As time passed, the motel’s real estate value kept climbing, and the steady cash that came in every month was the source of Gwanggeun’s confidence.
The second thing Gwanggeun was proud of was his thick head of hair.
With not a single gray strand and luxuriant volume, his hair made him look ten years younger than his peers.
When you’re young, a handsome man is just good-looking. But as you age, the handsome man is the one who looks young.
But lately, that precious treasure of his—his hair—was going limp.
Every time he showered, a fistful of shed hair clumped in the drain. Even beneath his ears, things were turning whitish; if he didn’t dye it, he’d look like a half-aged old man.
All of it was stress from that punk gangster who’d been squatting in his motel.
It wasn’t easy for ordinary people to deal with a gangster.
The law was always far away, and fists were close.
Gwanggeun remembered hearing once that only gangsters could deal with gangsters, so through acquaintances he got introduced to a nationally known gangster—one of the “big shots” in Seoul.
But the moment that “national-level” gangster heard the name of the man staying at Gwanggeun’s motel, he went pale and panicked, asking who the hell Gwanggeun was trying to get killed.
Turns out the long-term guest at the motel wasn’t just some local tough—he was a vicious bastard who’d taken over northern Seoul and supposedly killed dozens of people.
No matter how busy he was, Gwanggeun was the type who showed up at his precious business every single day and checked even the smallest details.
But these days, that damn gangster had taken over the office, so it was uncomfortable for him to even drop by.
Not groveling and flattering the guy like his brother-in-law Donggeun—the manager—was the last shred of pride he had left.
But he couldn’t take it anymore.
Because of the missile North Korea fired, all the illegal workers he’d been using at dirt-cheap wages had fled.
By sheer circumstance, he’d hired the younger guys that the gangster brought in as the cleaning team—only to end up paying three times the labor costs compared to before.
Sure, after the missile situation calmed down, there were actually more guests than before, so it wasn’t a fatal hit.
Still, Gwanggeun felt like he was dying over how wasteful that money was.
But today, finally, he saw a way out.
Without much expectation, he’d kept a standing job ad up—room and board provided, minimum wage.
And people actually showed up saying they’d take the job.
They were all young, innocent-looking Korean women and overseas Koreans.
But Gwanggeun felt awkward telling those intimidating slabs of muscle to stop coming in starting tomorrow.
Usually, when there was something awkward, he made the manager handle it—but for this, he decided he had to make Kang Chan do it.
Kang Chan worked hard and did the job well, but there was something strangely blank about him. And unlike everyone else, he didn’t seem scared of that gangster at all—calling him “hyung” and “little brother” and getting along just fine.
Seeing that made Gwanggeun’s blood boil, but he couldn’t show it in front of the gangster.
“So you’re saying they only need to work through today, right?”
After understanding the owner’s instructions, I asked, summarizing it in one line.
“Right. I got them with a lot of effort. A new cleaning team will start tomorrow. Tomorrow’s your workday, Chan, so tell them properly! And tell them thanks for working hard, and give them this—pay for the work they’ve done!”
The owner held out six envelopes of cash. He spoke like it was nothing, but his heartbeat was racing.
“I put in a lot. More than what we originally agreed on!”
“Yes, got it. I’ll tell them. Still… it’s a shame. They cleaned so well, the room condition got ridiculously good.”
“A shame?! If people that unpleasant are walking around a lodging place like this, customers will stop coming!”
At my words, the owner suddenly barked and yelled.
I couldn’t understand the abrupt emotional swing.
Male menopause or something? They said men got that too.
And yeah—lately the owner’s hair had gotten a lot thinner, and he’d been getting more gray.
“Ahem… anyway. That’s the deal. I’ve got something urgent, so I’m heading out. Take care of it like that!”
“Yes, boss.”
I put the six envelopes into the counter safe. The owner vanished quickly, grinning from ear to ear.
A few minutes later, Cheolmin hyung from Room 105 came out.
“Good day, Junior!”
Today was my day off.
I’d made a plan to open up Cheolmin hyung’s Ren and Du channels, and I’d told him in advance.
It was an internal-energy cultivation method passed down as a “secret art.” I lied solemnly that it was extremely dangerous, but if he succeeded, he’d gain astonishing power.
But when Cheolmin hyung asked what the technique was called, I almost answered Nine Yang Divine Art.
I’d been reading The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber the day before yesterday, so the name popped up reflexively.
When I didn’t answer, Cheolmin hyung muttered something like, “So it’s a nameless divine art,” and convinced himself.
“Yes. Once I get off work, I’ll go straight to Room 105.”
If it weren’t for Bella’s rebirth-through-transformation mission, I wouldn’t be doing something this reckless.
But there’s 30 billion won on the line, so sorry—Cheolmin hyung has to be my test subject.
“Oh! Please pass this to the younger guys who clean. The owner says he found a new cleaning team. He’s asking them to work only through today!”
“Ah, really? That’s good. Honestly, I felt a bit guilty making kids who want to be gangsters do nothing but cleaning.”
Cheolmin took the envelopes readily, like it was good news.
“It’s a shame, though. They followed the manual perfectly, so guests were rating us really well.”
“Is that so? Then should we make them keep working? If that’s what Master wants, I don’t mind.”
“No. It’s not something they can do forever, and this place needs to hire properly. I’ll pay attention and make sure the new people can reach the same level the Isu Gang guys did.”
In this business, clean is everything—start to finish.
Even if it’s tiring, doing it by the book is making the regulars visibly increase.
A little later, at 9:30, Chanhyeok hyung came in with an Isu Gang guy.
Chanhyeok hyung looked half like a gangster now.
Even his speech and greetings were starting to copy the people he hung around.
But since Chanhyeok hyung was skinny and short, it looked incredibly awkward.
At 10:00, I went up to my room, washed my work clothes, and hung them to dry.
But maybe the dress shirt was too old—the armpit seam tore.
Everything else was clean, so it felt wasteful to throw it out over a tiny hole. I used telekinesis to weave the fabric’s molecules together and fix it.
Perfect.
Come to think of it, if I repaired clothes like this, I could probably wear this shirt forever.
All the stuff that had happened recently—the missile, Chanhyeok hyung’s internal-energy training…
Using telekinesis in ways I’d never considered was expanding my imagination, and the applications were multiplying.
Still, the top priority was not getting caught.
Convenience was nice, but I had zero interest in being exposed as some psychic and losing a normal life.
The only thing my late parents ever wanted from me was for me to blend in, live normally with others, and be happy.
That was my number one life goal.
When I came down to the counter, I saw the Isu Gang guys with bright expressions as they loaded up the cleaning cart.
Seems like they hadn’t wanted to do cleaning work in the first place, even if they never said it out loud.
When I dipped my head in a small greeting, they bowed ninety degrees.
Definitely… to other guests, it would look weird.
When I rang the bell for Room 105, Cheolmin came out.
He’d already taken his shirt off and was wearing some absurdly luxury-looking workout pants.
They had a completely different sheen from the sweatpants I’d worn for three years.
“Alright. You’re ready, right? Today we’ll open the Ren and Du channels—an entrance between life and death. It’s extremely dangerous, so you must never overdo it. No matter what happens, keeping your calm is the most important thing!”
I said that, but I wasn’t actually that worried.
This wasn’t like forcing the body to accept energy until it exploded like those people who popped earlier.
It was just carving pathways inside the body and making energy move through them, so it didn’t seem like something that would be truly dangerous.
The real question was what effect this training would produce.
Not just becoming a “master” like in wuxia novels—could it actually trigger rebirth-through-transformation?
“Yes. Even if something happens to me, it’s entirely my choice. Master doesn’t need to feel burdened.”
Cheolmin hyung spoke with a grim, resolute expression, sat in the center of the room, closed his eyes, and crossed his legs.
I placed my hand on his back and slowly drew the energy pooled in his lower dantian upward.
From the dantian to the solar plexus came smoothly.
Probably thanks to all the minor circulation he’d been doing.
But from the solar plexus to the center of the chest between the nipples—
What was it called again? Some acupoint, but I couldn’t remember the name.
That part wasn’t easy.
If I forced it with brute strength, it felt like I might damage organs around it, so I gently guided and pulled.
Like squeezing through a narrow passage, the internal power reached the chest.
From there to the throat was smoother.
But when I looked at Cheolmin hyung’s face, he clearly had pain—his face was bright red, sweat pouring off him.
So this is what it means to open blocked channels?
I pulled the energy that had reached his throat in one breath up past his lips and the space between nose and upper lip, straight to the crown of his head.
It just felt like what I was supposed to do.
Cheolmin hyung’s body trembled violently like he’d been harpooned, and a groan slipped out that he couldn’t hold back.
“Alright… alright… it’s done. It’s done.”
I soothed him like a dentist calming a patient in pain.
I almost called him “sir.”
I lowered the energy from the crown down the back of the head, the nape, the back, the waist, to the tailbone and the perineum point.
There were a lot of spots where it snagged, but I figured finishing quickly would hurt less, so I applied a bit more force and pushed it down.
Even though I was only “seeing” it with telekinesis, being aware of a man’s perineum wasn’t a pleasant feeling, so I immediately moved the energy from the perineum back to the dantian.
Only then did Cheolmin hyung’s trembling body settle, as if the pain had ended.
And then, along the pathways I’d connected, his internal power kept circulating.
When I observed it with telekinesis, some parts looked like an eight-lane highway, while other parts were as narrow as a rural rice-field ridge.
That was probably why this process was hard—because you had to smash through uneven passages with your own power to widen them.
Doing that by yourself, gathering and accumulating tiny traces of qi from the air, would be brutally difficult.
But that didn’t apply to me.
I was gripping Cheolmin’s internal power with telekinesis and carving the route directly, so even bottlenecks opened easily.
One rotation. Three rotations. Ten rotations.
As the internal power kept rotating through the Ren–Du circuit, it stabilized—but unlike minor circulation, even if I eased off, it didn’t move solely by Cheolmin’s own strength.
The upward pressure from dantian to crown was too weak; I still had to help.
Before, I’d stuffed Cheolmin hyung’s dantian with as much ambient energy as his body could accept.
That was already the limit. If I’d gathered more and forced it in, Cheolmin hyung would’ve popped like those giants that night.
But now—this major circulation.
I could tell the ceiling of internal power his body could accept had increased.
While the major circulation was running, I condensed and fed more internal power in.
The upward pressure strengthened, and even when I gradually withdrew my support, it began to move on its own.
Thirty rotations.
Fifty rotations.
A full cycle took under a minute, so it had been about an hour since we started.
Now even the routes that had been narrow at first had widened like eight-lane highways, and Cheolmin—eyes shut, in total trance—was absorbed in major-circulation training.
It felt like I’d done everything I could…
But Cheolmin hyung’s body still wasn’t showing the reaction I wanted.
If not rebirth-through-transformation, then at least rejuvenation… or is rejuvenation the higher level?
But if a man in his thirties gets younger, does that mean he turns into a teenager?
Ninety-nine rotations.
One hundred rotations.
Less than two hours after starting, a change finally appeared.
At first, I thought Cheolmin hyung farted.
But then the stench hit.
A vile smell—beyond shit, more like rotting corpses.
I threw open the windows in Room 105 for ventilation and cranked the air conditioner to maximum cooling.
Thin black smoke seeped out of Cheolmin hyung’s pores, and the stench came from that smoke.
When the seemingly endless black smoke finally stopped, thick liquid followed.
Cheolmin hyung’s entire body was coated in something like phlegm or yellow snot mixed with black paint—he looked like a black monster.
But only for a moment.
As his skin began peeling, the black sludge cracked and flaked off with it.
I grabbed a plastic liner from the bathroom trash can and collected Cheolmin hyung’s dead skin and impurities.
Of course I didn’t do it by hand.
I used telekinesis, and Cheolmin hyung—deep in trance—didn’t notice.
Honestly, it would’ve been better if he were fully naked…
I only cleaned up the impurities around his upper body and face.
His lower half—he could handle that himself.
Either way, it was a success.
With one layer peeled away, Cheolmin hyung’s skin was brighter than Cha Eun-woo with full makeup.
Bella’s mission was clearly within reach.