Beneath the Moonlight, a New Beginning
One month and fifteen days later, on a night when the moonlight shone brightly across the courtyard.
The members of the Dan family were drenched in sweat as they practiced the twelve forms of the Harmonious Strength Qi Regulation Method.
These days, they began every morning and ended every night with this breathing technique.
“Huu……”
Dan Yuseon exhaled a long breath, then drew fresh air deep into his lungs once more.
He could now feel the inner energy accumulating within him through this circulation method, which seemed to resemble a Taoist health-preserving art.
But did breathing techniques ever have forms?
It was a small doubt. Though he knew nothing of martial arts, he was aware that internal energy methods and breathing techniques did not traditionally include forms.
Yet if this particular method possessed them, it was clearly no ordinary technique.
The meticulously divided Harmonious Strength Qi Regulation Method accumulated pure energy even in the finest blood vessels and meridians throughout the body.
Dan Yuseon gazed at his son, who sat in lotus position with his eyes closed.
He wanted to ask where he had learned this extraordinary breathing method.
But he swallowed the question that had risen to his throat.
It was because he believed his son would tell him when the time was right.
His son was hiding something.
Dan Yuseon had sensed it with a father’s intuition some time ago.
He also knew his son was no ordinary martial artist.
And that the same was true of Hwa Yuhwa, who sat beside him with her eyes closed.
With that final thought, Dan Yuseon exhaled and concluded the Harmonious Strength Qi Regulation Method.
“May I start working again soon?”
Hwa Yuhwa answered Dan Yuseon’s question. His family had been preventing him from working until now.
“As long as you don’t overdo it.”
“That’s the answer I’ve been waiting so long to hear.”
As Dan Yuseon gave a bitter smile, Jin Yeongyeong arrived with tea she had prepared in the kitchen and sat beside him.
“I suppose it will be hard to see your face from now on. You’ll be buried in work again.”
“Hahaha. If I worked like that now, Hyunwoo would scold me right away. And Miss Hwa would too.”
Hwa Yuhwa nodded.
“Of course you would be scolded. Four hours a day. No more than that. You’re getting on in years, and you haven’t fully recovered yet.”
“Hmm…… Then Hyunwoo and Seoyeon will have to help as well.”
“Me?”
Dan Hyunwoo pointed at himself with his finger.
When he glanced sideways, he saw Dan Seoyeon pointing at herself too.
Dan Yuseon smiled and nodded.
“You need to learn the business quickly and take over the Danhwa Silk Shop. I want to retire and spend my days peacefully with your mother.”
“I think my little sister can learn it alone. She can inherit the Danhwa Silk Shop too.”
“Are you serious?”
Dan Hyunwoo answered without the slightest hesitation when his slightly surprised father asked again.
Dan Seoyeon recalled how her brother had once said he would place Eun Doyun in the position of young master.
Realizing once more that her brother intended to yield everything, she clenched her fists tightly.
“No. You have to do it with me, Brother. I’ve never once thought the Danhwa Silk Shop belonged to me alone.”
“You would probably run it best. Far better than I could.”
“Brother!”
“You’ve been clever since you were little. You were the one who protected the Dan family all those years. And weren’t you the one who gave birth to and raised Doyun, who will inherit the family in the future?”
“You could marry Sister Yuhwa and have children too.”
“Why did marriage with Yuhwa suddenly come up?”
“Then are you going to live alone for the rest of your life without getting married? When there’s such a good person right beside you?”
At Dan Seoyeon’s words, Dan Yuseon and Jin Yeongyeong urged them on with faces flushed with excitement.
Dan Hyunwoo’s face crumpled into a scowl.
This girl brought up the exact topic Father and Mother would love most just to tie me to the Danhwa Silk Shop.
The problem was that Hwa Yuhwa was making the exact same face as she egged them on.
I’ll deal with you later.
Suppressing the urge to flick her forehead as she grinned mischievously, Dan Hyunwoo stood up from his seat.
“Let’s talk about this later. And Yuhwa, come with me for a moment.”
“Yes.”
Hwa Yuhwa followed Dan Hyunwoo as he headed into the room.
She was still smiling brightly.
She even clung to him the moment they entered the room.
She pressed her chest against him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“That’s enough.”
“What is?”
“I told you to stop clinging to me so much. And what was that look on your face earlier?”
“I just…… thought the young lady was right?”
“Since when has saying you should marry me been the right thing?”
“I wasn’t talking about that. I thought the part about living alone without having children was right. Why are you reacting so sensitively?”
She dodged it again like this.
Irritation surged all the way to the top of his head.
Dan Hyunwoo pushed Hwa Yuhwa away a bit roughly.
“Didn’t I tell you to restrain yourself!”
“Ah…… Um, sorry. Did I make the Commander angry again……”
Hwa Yuhwa turned her head and shook her shoulders.
Seeing her slender shoulders trembling pitifully, Dan Hyunwoo let out a small sigh.
Was I too harsh?
It was rare for her to cry.
As he wondered what to say to comfort her, instinct moved faster than thought, and Dan Hyunwoo turned her shoulders toward him.
“Sorry for pushing you so roughly……?!”
“……”
“……”
The two people whose eyes met perfectly fell into silence.
Hwa Yuhwa had been caught in the act of wetting her finger with spit and dabbing it around her eyes.
Hwa Yuhwa wore an awkward expression while Dan Hyunwoo gave a hollow, bitter smile mixed with anger.
“Ehehe……”
“You can laugh?”
In a flash!
Hwa Yuhwa swiftly opened the door and bolted.
Dan Hyunwoo chased after her.
“Stop right there!”
Without looking back, Hwa Yuhwa kicked off the wall with lightness skill and leaped over it. Dan Hyunwoo did the same, jumping the wall and pursuing her.
Watching this strange sight while drinking tea, Dan Yuseon spoke.
“Even though he says he doesn’t like it, the way he chases after her with that ‘catch me if you can’ vibe shows Hyunwoo doesn’t actually dislike Miss Hwa.”
“Hohoho, we used to do that often by the Hangzhou seaside when we were young. It brings back memories. Doesn’t it, dear?”
“It does.”
Dan Seoyeon added a comment as well.
“So Brother was secretly acting all coy. He likes her enough to chase after her like that.”
Eun Hyeongyeom, who had been drinking tea, took Dan Seoyeon’s hand.
“Shall we play the same ‘catch me if you can’ game like Father-in-law and Mother-in-law? Hyunwoo’s doing it too.”
“You really…… How shameless. But they say the weather will be nice tomorrow. The sea breeze is supposed to be refreshing too. Just saying.”
“So you want to do it.”
“Hahaha.”
The family clutched their stomachs and laughed for a long time.
The faces of Dan Yuseon and Jin Yeongyeong, which had turned red with embarrassment at the mention of their youthful games, and the faces of Dan Seoyeon and Eun Hyeongyeom as they shyly anticipated the next day, all looked the same.
Though the night grew deep, the warmth enveloping the four people beneath the moonlight showed no sign of cooling.
Laughter spilled over the walls, breaking the quiet night where only the occasional sound of crickets could be heard.
The four family members earnestly prayed in their hearts that this peaceful moment would last forever.
Just as the sweet floral scent wafted each year from the osmanthus tree planted in one corner of the yard.
They sincerely wished for such happiness.
The next day.
Dan Seoyeon’s face was flushed bright red as she headed toward the Danhwa Silk Shop.
She had gone to the seaside early that morning and apparently played the ‘catch me if you can’ game, but it seemed only embarrassment remained instead of fond memories.
“Are you never going to do it again?”
“I’d rather die. How could I have done something like that at my age?”
“Don’t kick off the blanket tonight.”
“Ugh……”
She didn’t answer, but it was obvious she and her husband would both be kicking the blankets at the same time.
Her father and mother had probably done the same last night.
But why doesn’t Brother seem affected at all? He definitely did that embarrassing thing last night too.
The faces of her brother and Hwa Yuhwa, who were also heading to the Danhwa Silk Shop, looked perfectly calm.
The only thing was that the top of Hwa Yuhwa’s head seemed more swollen than last night—probably just an optical illusion.
No…… the way she was rubbing her crown suggested it wasn’t her imagination.
Her lips were pouting out too.
Before she could finish wondering what had happened, the Danhwa Silk Shop—which she hadn’t seen in a long time—greeted them, so Dan Seoyeon quickly shook off the thought.
It was because her father was walking toward the shop as if welcoming home a son who had run away.
When Dan Yuseon arrived at the Danhwa Silk Shop, his fingertips trembled and the corners of his eyes grew moist.
This place that had once been his workplace for so long.
The afternoon sunlight illuminated the shopping street, but the front of the Danhwa Silk Shop seemed as if time had stopped.
All kinds of emotions surged within him.
This had once been a foundation of life that was taken from him.
Because this place had been an extension of himself, his heart had never found peace after it was stolen.
The red lacquer on the characters for ‘Danhwa’ had peeled off in places, making him feel the transience of time.
The shop had aged as much as he had, but thanks to whatever his son had done, it was spotlessly clean without a speck of dust—just as it had been before.
Dan Yuseon trembled lightly.
“Let’s go inside.”
The door opened with a creak from the handle.
Dan Yuseon’s eyes widened.
Amazingly, the interior was filled with piles of silk just like before.
“We recovered the silk that was taken from us.”
“A…… amazing. And the silk piled over there looks newly made?”
Dan Yuseon ran his hand over the silk stacked on one side.
The quality was good, but not as fine as that of the Danhwa Silk Shop.
“That is the silk produced by the Mokhwa Merchant Group.”
“The quality has improved compared to before. So it developed like this while I was bedridden.”
Regret, sorrow, and complex emotions too difficult to describe crossed Dan Yuseon’s face.
“It seems I lay in bed for far too long.”
“In any case, the Mokhwa Merchant Group now belongs to you, Father. Would you like to go see it now?”
“Y-yes.”
It still didn’t feel real.
That hated Mokhwa Merchant Group was now his.
Dan Yuseon silently watched his son’s back as he led the way to the Mokhwa Merchant Group without a word.
His son’s dependable figure and unwavering shoulders.
Rather than despair over the years he had lost to illness, he drew even more courage from his son’s appearance.
The Mokhwa Merchant Group that he thought he would never see again.
When Dan Yuseon opened the door and entered, he gasped in astonishment.
He had thought it would not be easy to restore the Danhwa Silk Shop’s former reputation.
But the sight of excellent weavers already producing silk here completely changed his mind.
With these weavers……
They would be able to produce both top-grade silk and appropriately quality silk to increase their competitiveness.
Dan Yuseon felt certain of it.
Dan Seoyeon had similar thoughts.
Dan Hyunwoo had already used every means and method to ensure the Danhwa Silk Shop could regain its former glory.
As expected, Brother is much more capable than I am.
Yet she felt no sense of defeat.
From when she was little—no, from the very beginning—Dan Seoyeon had never beaten her brother at anything.
Studies and business were the same.
The chief steward, Yun Cho-hak, who had come out to greet Dan Hyunwoo, bowed his head.
“This is the person who will lead both the Mokhwa Merchant Group and the Danhwa Silk Shop from now on.”
“We have met before.”
Yun Cho-hak could not lift his lowered head.
He had been at the forefront alongside the former owner Cheon Ilseong in the attempt to swallow the Danhwa Silk Shop.
The memory of raising glasses and laughing with Cheon Ilseong when they heard Dan Yuseon had collapsed flashed through his mind.
His lightly trembling hands.
His firmly closed mouth.
He had no face to show Dan Yuseon.
Then, at the suddenly warm hand, Yun Cho-hak raised his head.
Amazingly, Dan Yuseon was smiling as he held that hand.
“I’ll be counting on you from now on.”
“Th…… that is……”
The surging emotion in his chest and the feeling that his mouth was full of mush made the words circle inside without coming out.
When he slowly raised his head to meet his gaze, Dan Yuseon was still looking at him with an unwavering smile.
Yun Cho-hak barely managed to summon the courage to speak the words that wouldn’t come.
“I’ll…… be counting on you as well.”
A magnanimity incomparable to Cheon Ilseong.
The smile the man he had tried to kill gave him contained unfeigned sincerity.
He could not fail to recognize it.
After calming his heart, which was filled with deep emotion, Dan Yuseon slowly opened his mouth toward Dan Seoyeon, Dan Hyunwoo, Hwa Yuhwa, and Yun Cho-hak.
“I am glad. That the Danhwa Silk Shop is making a fresh start like this. And that both Hyunwoo and Seoyeon are here together.”
Dan Yuseon felt so happy that he wondered if he might still be dreaming.
That can’t be.
Just then, the sunlight pouring into the Mokhwa Merchant Group dyed the dust rising from the weaving in golden hues.
It was as if it were blessing the newly beginning Danhwa Silk Shop.