The Gallant Heroes
Mount Beimang. The Kong family estate. The training grounds.
Darkness had settled, and the sky glittered with a dense scatter of stars. Torches and bonfires stood at intervals across the training grounds, flooding the area with light.
Whether for guests invited by the family, retainers staying at the estate, or a grandson who trained in martial arts, the Kong family’s training grounds did not suffer by comparison with those of the Luoyang Sword Family. If anything, where the Sword Family’s grounds stressed pure utility, these were far more splendid, and yet they still carried the quiet, refined dignity unique to the estate—altogether a sight worthy of one of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families.
“Hmm. So this is about the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family—the one known as the Swordless One?”
At his comrade’s question, Kong Dam-ung, grandson of Kong Ryang and master of this estate, slowly nodded.
“That’s right. He asked for a spar out of nowhere.”
“What kind of—”
At that answer, the woman with the long blade strapped across her back shook her head.
“I cannot begin to guess what that Young Master is thinking. Could there be some other meaning behind the request?”
Kong Dam-ung let out a low sound of thought.
“I’ve heard more than once from Grandfather how deep that man’s schemes run, but…”
They were all tangled up over the spar the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family—the one known as the Swordless One—had demanded of Kong Dam-ung. Ordinary hot-blooded youths might have laughed at the Swordless One’s eccentricity, or taken it for a chance to humiliate him. But these were the gallant warriors called the Four Heroes of Yellow Lake, men and women of some renown across Luoyang and the Henan region.
They had only meant to gather at Kong Dam-ung’s estate as usual and drink the night away; instead they found themselves thrown into this sudden mess. None of them was the heir of one of the Sixteen Families the way Kong Dam-ung was, but every one of them came from a distinguished house in Luoyang. None of them could treat a situation like this lightly.
“…This is something Brother Kong should have refused on the spot.”
Kong Dam-ung scratched the back of his head.
“In the moment, the blood just rushed to my head…”
When everyone’s reproachful stares fixed on him, he laughed, loud and easy.
“Well. The Young Master must have had some corner of confidence of his own, or he wouldn’t have asked this Kong Dam-ung for a spar, would he?”
He rolled his shoulders in slow circles.
“I’ll just make sure he doesn’t walk away with any bruises. What could go wrong? Hahaha!”
It was the same Kong Dam-ung as always, and the other three sighed and shook their heads. At the same time—again as always—his simple words somehow offered a decent answer to a complicated situation.
“…There’s nothing for it, then. You’ll have to be careful not to hurt him.”
“I’ve heard the rumors that even his own family looks down on him—but rumors are only rumors.”
“And if he causes trouble, from this day forward we’ll claim we were never the Four Heroes of Yellow Lake, but the Three Heroes of Yellow Lake all along.”
At that last joke, they all laughed, the tension easing a little.
“Whoa. Here he comes.”
They wiped the smiles from their faces at once and turned toward the entrance of the training grounds. Kong Ryang and Yeon So-hyeon, their necessary conversation finished, were approaching. As the servants wheeled Kong Ryang forward in his chair, Kong Dam-ung’s comrades hurried to pay their respects.
“We present ourselves before the elder of the Kong—”
“Enough.”
Kong Ryang waved a hand, cutting off their formalities.
“The master of this estate is Kong Ryang, but the guest of honor is the First Young Master of the Sword Family. The Young Master here is a man of great affairs and little free time. Be grateful that he has personally carved out a precious hour to grant you his instruction.”
When a giant of the imperial capital’s political world like Kong Ryang used honorifics and elevated the First Young Master like that, the comrades’ faces darkened still further.
…
Having clearly dragged his friends into a tiresome mess, Kong Dam-ung swallowed a sigh and introduced himself to the First Young Master. It was the courtesy customarily observed before a spar.
“I am, though it shames me to say so, known among my fellows of the rivers and lakes as Giant Strength Vajra—Kong Dam-ung. By a chance connection I received instruction in Shaolin’s Vajra Arhat Qigong, and—”
“Spare the formalities.”
Yeon So-hyeon cut him off.
“As you have heard, I am a busy man. Do not waste my time.”
…!
Hands clasped behind his back, he spoke with a arrogance so pure it was almost theatrical. For a moment Kong Dam-ung nearly charged him then and there—then, thinking of his comrades, he carved the character for endure deep into his heart.
“The first move is—”
“Yours.”
He stood with his hands behind his back as if he were some grandmaster of a great martial sect, looking down on them—full of openings, yet radiating absolute confidence. Uneasy, Kong Dam-ung’s comrades studied Yeon So-hyeon again. But on him they could find not the slightest trace of a man who had trained in martial arts.
“…Very well. Then.”
Kong Dam-ung did not decline. He stepped in deep at once and shot out a hand the size of a cauldron lid. For a man of his bulk, the speed was absurd—fast enough that an ordinary person would never have managed to react. He meant to snatch the First Young Master by the nape and end it with a simple choke.
Then the world flashed white before his eyes.
“…Kh?!”
What just happened? What—?
In the same instant the light burst across his vision, Kong Dam-ung’s mind went empty, as if someone had scooped it clean.
…?!
From the mouths of everyone watching, startled exclamations tore free of their own accord. In the same heartbeat that Kong Dam-ung closed the distance, the First Young Master’s body ghosted half a step back and spun. Riding that spin, a reverse roundhouse kick snapped out and turned Kong Dam-ung’s jaw.
There was no immense strength in the kick, no unheard-of inner force. He had simply hidden the solid within the empty and used his opponent’s own power and charge for a perfect counter. So exquisite was that single technique that, to those watching, it looked as if the First Young Master’s heel had only brushed Kong Dam-ung’s chin in passing.
“U-ugh…?!”
As his wits slowly returned, Kong Dam-ung realized he was on his knees. He jerked his head up and tried to surge to his feet—
“U-uugh…?!”
But Yeon So-hyeon had already stepped close, hands still clasped behind his back, and was pressing down on that massive skull with a single hand. A quiet voice slipped into Kong Dam-ung’s ear.
“So you quit the filthy, sordid business of officialdom and thought you would try your hand at becoming an upright gallant hero, is that it?”
“Urrgh…!”
He wanted to snap back—but if he did, he was certain his neck would break on the spot.
“I need not hear your story from your own mouth. It is obvious enough.”
Kong Dam-ung’s face burned scarlet; veins stood out on his temples as he trembled, but the First Young Master’s tone remained perfectly calm.
“You had some notion of chivalry and righteousness you carried since you were young. You tried to do something with it in the political world, but nothing ever went the way you planned, and it left you choking on frustration.”
He tried to raise the Vajra Arhat Qigong and force his way free of that grip. It was useless. He felt like a boulder crushed in the deepest heart of a great mountain.
“Then one day you lost your temper, charged someone head-on—and it felt good. With your grandfather’s name and the family’s standing behind you, you never even had to worry about the aftermath.”
The First Young Master’s mocking gaze met Kong Dam-ung’s bloodshot eyes.
“So you decided: this is my path. Reliving the thrill of the day you threw a high official, you thought you would use the strength and martial bones you were born with to set chivalry and righteousness upright again. That is what you told yourself.”
Yeon So-hyeon spoke into Kong Dam-ung’s ear as if sharing a secret.
“Shallow boy.”
It struck the mark dead center.
“…Urrraaaaah!”
Shame and humiliation flooded Kong Dam-ung’s mind as pure rage. From the tips of his limbs he hauled up colossal strength; inner force erupted like a live volcano as he tried to rise. The harder the kneeling Kong Dam-ung pushed, the more the paving stones under his knees shattered and split, and the ground itself began to sink.
And that was all. The pale hand pressing down on his head did not so much as twitch. Before Yeon So-hyeon—who was realizing the extremes of four ounces deflecting a thousand pounds and the Transformation Realm—it was nothing but a child’s antics.
“You broke the rules, and that was why?”
Yeon So-hyeon’s eyes mocked Kong Dam-ung’s thin grasp of reality.
“In the Kong family—the most ancient lineage on this Central Plains soil—how is it that a green boy who barely licks the surface of Legalist doctrine can even exist?”
His grip tightened by a fraction more. Kong Dam-ung’s body began to sink into the earth in earnest.
“Second place this, second place that. In the end, grinding for an examination that has nothing to do with reality and reciting memorized knowledge by the yard—proving once again that it is of no help whatsoever in the real world.”
Yeon So-hyeon’s free hand flashed like lightning.
“Uwaaah…”
Kong Dam-ung toppled backward with a sound like air leaving a bellows. At some point, several golden needles had been driven into his vital points; his whole body was paralyzed.
“You will have to live with shame before true gallant heroes and chivalrous warriors.”
Yeon So-hyeon clicked his tongue and dusted off his hands.
“Y-Young Master…! That is too far!”
At first, Kong Dam-ung’s comrades had been too stunned by the First Young Master’s unfathomable level to do more than stare. But as Yeon So-hyeon’s open mockery went on, they could no longer hold back.
“Brother Kong may have a temper that flares too hot, and it is true he never adapted to official life—but the chivalry and righteousness in his heart are real! To mock even that is to smear your own face, Young Master!”
“Brother Kong endured and endured until he could no longer stomach the rotten corruption of the imperial capital. That is all!”
They cried out exactly as self-styled gallant warriors should.
“Endurance…?”
Through Yeon So-hyeon’s mind flashed the countless Buddha statues he had carved and carved again. The moments of his previous life, when he had endured and endured still more, flickered past.
“Endurance.”
He turned, hands once more behind his back, and threw them a laugh of pure scorn.
“Do you truly believe you have so much as brushed against what real endurance is?”
“Young Master, you are the one speaking carelessly of people you do not understand at all!”
“I need not look to know it. I need not open my eyes for it to stand clear. What else is there left to learn?”
Yeon So-hyeon clicked his tongue.
“At first you went poking into the lives of common folk here and there, and whenever injustice caught your eye you came running, fists first.”
A wind rose and stirred his black silk outer robe.
“And what was the result of all that merry swinging of fists and stirring of ordinary people’s lives?”
His quiet rebuke rolled on.
“The commoners who could not answer for the aftermath resented you and pointed fingers. You yourselves, to protect yourselves from the backlash of your own so-called chivalrous deeds, had no choice but to hide behind your family names.”
The scolding flowed as if he had been standing there for every moment of it.
“After a few rounds of that, cowed and diminished, you settled for exchanging courtesies with famous constables and renowned martial artists, and wasted your years babbling about chivalry and righteousness over wine. Is that not so?”
…
They all shut their mouths and trembled. Yeon So-hyeon’s words had been built from conjecture; a few details were off, a few points not quite true. But in the larger frame, not a single sentence was wrong.
“Chivalrous action, at its root, is self-redress—and it springs from the compassion of one who cannot simply look past others suffering the same fate as himself.”
There was a reason Yeon So-hyeon could rebuke them so sharply without truly knowing them: precisely because he did not know them. If they had been real gallant heroes, real chivalrous warriors, he would have known. If they had been genuine, their names would have stood among the Spring of Luoyang, or he would have heard of them through that network.
Like Se-a, Master of Hyeonwol Pavilion.
Like Seo Rim-cheong of the Twin Sala Trees.
Like the former Taoist turned righteous thief who, even now, robbed the houses of the rich in Luoyang to aid the poor.
Like those who had rolled up their sleeves and joined the battle against the Black Bone Sect, and carried permanent injuries large and small for it.
Men and women of purpose who acted were already members of the Spring of Luoyang, or were receiving its invitation.
“The ideals you carry may be real enough. But what you actually do, even viewed in the kindest light, is nothing more than ‘playing at being heroes’—martial wastrels bonding and networking among themselves.”
At last one of them exploded.
“…Shut your mouth!”
Yeon So-hyeon only snorted, loud and contemptuous, and flung his outer robe back so that it billowed behind him.
“Yes. Losing your temper the moment you hear a few hard words—how perfectly like green boys.”
“You—!”
The one who had shouted at him to shut up unleashed his presence and launched into movement technique. That he did not draw the sword at his waist—was that the last flicker of conscience, a refusal to stain the name of gallant warrior they claimed? Or was it the petty fear of daring to turn a blade on the First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family?
“Foolish…”
Before Yeon So-hyeon could finish the word, the man—inner force already surging to an alarming pitch—was charging in. And Yeon So-hyeon’s left hand, which had been clasped behind his back, slipped casually forward. Before the incoming fist could reach his face, the concentration of force in the fist Yeon So-hyeon had lazily extended reached its peak.
Secret transmission of the Yang family. No true step. No distance. No preparation. The secret force-issuing art of the Yang line, fully realized in Yeon So-hyeon’s hand after he had only seen and endured it a few times that day.
A flash of light. An ear-splitting roar. The training grounds shuddered as if struck by an earthquake. Amid Yeon So-hyeon’s quiet laughter, the thick cloud of dust gradually thinned.
…
The man who had collapsed in front of Yeon So-hyeon, face emptied of all thought, trembled as he looked back over his shoulder.
…!
Behind him the paving stones had been gouged out in a straight line—and that was not all. The force that had gone on and on without end had burst through the thick wall of the training grounds as if shattering it, leaving only the scar of where the barrier had stood. He hastily patted himself down. Not a single wound. Yeon So-hyeon had left mercy in his hand. By the method of striking the ox across the mountain, he had set the release point of the Thundering Heaven-Piercing Cannon behind his opponent’s back and let the force flow away to the rear.
…!
Yeon So-hyeon received their stares of shock and awe full upon him and spoke.
“Feel shame before those who have nothing left in this world to rely on but their own two fists.”
He slowly withdrew the hand he had extended and returned to the posture with his hands behind his back, looking down on them. He who had been born crushed beneath the fate of the Heaven-Killing Star; who had resisted and resisted again, and been defeated and defeated again; who, in the final moment of his life, had even contracted with that ancient demonic abomination, the Jeam Jincheon Scripture, to resist that fate once more—he spoke.
“You were born with far finer backgrounds than they. And yet you could not master your own tempers, and so you chose the easy road. You are nothing more than dropouts.”