All Swords Turn to Wudang
"Young Master Myeong, I will repay this debt without fail. You have my word, on my name as Matriarch."
"Setting Haomun aside, I, Ma Sok, will do anything and everything for you, Young Master Myeong. Call on me at any hour."
"Hahaha! Myeong, my little brother, you've done me a great service. Just you wait—I'll be sure to repay every bit of it!"
Yeo Wol, Ma Sok, and Gang Pae hyeong each left their parting words in the key of their own natures, then took their leave at once.
Gang Pae hyeong's conduct, in particular, was a sight to remember.
"Listen up, boys! Young Master Myeong is my sworn brother, one I have acknowledged with my own name. From this day on, you will treat him as you treat me. Have I made myself clear?!"
The words had scarcely left his mouth—
"We're in your care, Big Brother!"
—and the Walpae, five thousand strong, roared as one and bowed their heads.
And so it was that I had become big brother to street thugs numbering five thousand. I felt as though I had been made a magnate of the underworld—a fate my stars had never once deigned to write.
In any case... that was how the day's business drew to a close.
Measured against the favor I had bestowed, their send-off might be called a stingy return—yet it would be wrong to see it so.
Haomun. A great power that could stand comparison with the Nine Sects and the One Gang. And the one who had so abruptly ascended to its seat of Matriarch was Yeo Wol.
The contest for succession had been vicious, so one could not say she came to the seat wholly unprepared—but neither could anyone deny the suddenness of it. Haomun, moreover, was by nature a confederation of factions rather than a single hierarchy, unlike the Beggars' Sect, and so Yeo Wol, newly seated, was bound to spend days busier than these in her struggle to bring the organization to heel. A new struggle lay in wait for her.
Ma Sok was the subordinate Yeo Wol trusted above all others, and Gang Pae hyeong would stand as her most dependable partner—so there was no cause for worry.
And I, for my part, spent the passing days sharing Geomnamchun with Chun-baek hyeong, as I had not in a long while.
Glug, glug, glug. Gulp.
"Ahh—"
"Mmm—"
For a time, neither of us spoke; we simply savored the flavor of the Geomnamchun.
"You have been through a great deal."
Belated as it was, I owed him my sincere thanks. Working backward from the hour the Peerless Crushing Force had arrived, it was not hard to guess how severe an ordeal Chun-baek hyeong must have endured.
"Oh, it was nothing. I enjoyed myself."
Chun-baek hyeong said he had gained a great deal in his own right, having drawn much inspiration from the Peerless Crushing Force.
"You, too, must come visit Sadomeng sometime. Next time, I would prefer you use the front gate."
The Lord of Sadomeng had left that message for Chun-baek hyeong personally, which meant he, too, had seen something in him—though I could not say I grasped precisely what.
"So it is all finished now, is it?"
A quiet expectation had stolen into Chun-baek hyeong's voice.
'Do I look like a man who goes about summoning incidents?' I wanted to shoot back, but I could not. For I knew all too well that in every hour I had spent at his side, I had stood at the center of the affair.
"I am thinking of paying Wudang a visit."
And because one more affair was already waiting for me up ahead.
"Entertaining again, this time."
Chun-baek hyeong smiled, satisfied.
The gossip-lover and the Beggars' Sect beggar, I would say, share a truly symbiotic bond from which each draws profit. The gossip-lover gets to parade what he knows; the beggar gets to procure quality information with ease.
To cultivate easy relations with as many gossip-lovers as possible—that is the true virtue of a Beggars' Sect beggar. And since I, Myeong-gae, stood on intimate terms with Gwak Mo hyeong, foremost among the gossip-lovers of Hebei Province, it would be right to rate me a genuinely capable beggar.
"Myeong-gae."
"What is it?"
"What would you call the finest weapon in existence?"
"Hmm."
The one flaw in the arrangement, of course, is that the talk of gossip-lovers does not always bend toward quality information. One could call it the decisive difference between the beggar and the gossip-lover.
"And what does Gwak Mo hyeong think?"
Feigning a stir of interest, I passed the question back to him. I knew, you see, that idle chatter is the more useful instrument for building rapport—and that such rapport would one day return to me as information of even finer quality. It was fair to call it a kind of investment.
"Since of old, there has been the saying of the Eighteen Weapons."
Gwak Mo hyeong's eyes lit up as he spoke. In truth, most of the gossip-loving kind are devotees of the rivers-and-lakes romance, so it must be called inevitable that the subject of weapons would make his eyes shine.
"The sword, the saber, the spear, the lance, the bow, the crossbow, the axe, the battle-axe, the mallet, the dagger-axe, the halberd, the whip, the chain, the rod, the mace, the shield, the staff, and the rake—those are the Eighteen Weapons, a phrase long used in place of 'every weapon in the rivers and lakes.'"
"...You actually walk around with all of that memorized?"
"Then what?"
"No—no, of course not."
Even so, the minds of that gossip-loving breed are, at times, simply beyond fathoming. At any rate, though I had not committed them to memory well enough to recite them as Gwak Mo hyeong had, the Eighteen Weapons was a concept I knew well, and the conversation flowed without a hitch.
"Among gossip-lovers, it has ever been a subject of ceaseless debate: which of those Eighteen Weapons stands supreme?"
"You wish to hear my thoughts on it?"
"Are you not the renowned Samgyeol Branch Master of the Beggars' Sect itself? If the word went round that my own Beggars' Sect Branch Master had vouched for my claim, I could shout down any debate the gossip-lovers cared to hold."
For once, Gwak Mo hyeong was singing my praises. Flattered, I opened my mouth with a self-satisfied "ahem," crowing as I spoke.
"In that case, allow me to argue that the Eighteen Weapons themselves are obsolete."
"Oh ho?"
When it comes to seizing the helm of a debate, nothing serves so well as the unorthodox stroke. It means not playing the board as it lies, but laying down an entirely new one. And this was, moreover, an argument grounded in what I genuinely believed.
"The classification of the Eighteen Weapons must be seen as truly ancient. And there are reasons it has grown old."
"Will you explain?"
"First, I would raise the problem of distinctions. In today's murim, has the line between spear, lance, and halberd not been rendered meaningless?"
"Do you speak of Lanna Zha—the spear's block, seize, and thrust?"
"As expected of you, Gwak Mo hyeong."
The erudition of Gwak Mo hyeong the gossip-lover was, as ever, anything but shallow. At any rate, that was how it stood: the spear, the lance, and the halberd, once told apart by the shape of their blades, had seen that distinction rendered moot the moment the spear arts of Lanna Zha were codified.
"The line between axe and battle-axe is just as dead."
"Just so. The axe simply grew too large, you see."
The battle-axe, ordinarily, was a word for the great axe—and because the warriors who took up the axe had always tended to prize raw strength, the axe had done nothing but grow.
"Reasons like these there are, but the greatest reason lies elsewhere."
"And what would that be?"
"The simple fact that the warrior's own body was never counted among the armaments."
"Hm?"
This one, it seemed, even Gwak Mo hyeong could not grasp at once.
"Gwak Mo hyeong."
"Speak."
"Could you truly argue that the fist, the palm, and the kick are no armaments to a warrior?"
"...I could not."
It is my view that fist, palm, and kick must be counted as armaments. Just as there are arts of the sword, the axe, and the saber, are there not arts of the fist, the palm, and the kick? The examples are beyond counting.
Who does not know the famed Hundred-Step Divine Fist of Shaolin, or the Taiji Fist of Wudang? The Yan Family of Hebei would be rated masters of armament in their own right—men who cross blades with the sabers of the Yongli Paeng Family armed with their fists alone. The Beggars' Sect's Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms and Emei's Crouching Tiger Palm are ultimate arts ranked among the very finest the murim has to offer. Nor could one omit Shaolin's Supreme Kick, or the Asura Kick of Surabo, a powerhouse sect under Sadomeng's banner.
Reality being what it is, is it not right to judge fist, palm, and kick as armaments?
"I grant that interpretations may differ—but in today's murim, I see no profit in going out of one's way to exclude fist, palm, and kick from the ranks of armament."
"You seem to have the right of it."
With Gwak Mo hyeong conceding the point, I smiled in satisfaction and leaned slightly toward him.
"And this next thing—I tell it to you alone, Gwak Mo hyeong..."
"Hm?"
"The Beggars' Sect has of late prepared a thing called the Weapon Compendium. It has yet to spread widely."
"Oh ho!"
Gwak Mo hyeong's grin split ear to ear, gums and all. It was no closely guarded secret to begin with, and I had received my share from him over the months—a kindness of this measure was only proper to return. And should a Gwak Mo hyeong victorious in the debates of the gossip-lovers find his mood sweetened, crumbs of that good fortune would surely sift down to me as well.
"Out with it, then."
"The name that has made the Eighteen Weapons a relic of the past is the Weapon Compendium, and its contents may be summed up as: sword, saber, spear, fist, and palm; hammer, kick, axe, staff, and whip—together with every manner of exotic arm besides."
"...Is that not scarcely any different at all?"
"Hm."
Gwak Mo hyeong the gossip-lover was, unlike himself, playing the benighted soul—so it fell to me to grant him instruction.
"The Eighteen Weapons are nothing more than armaments strung together without order. But look closely at the Weapon Compendium. What do you see?"
After a moment's pondering, Gwak Mo hyeong's face remade itself into that of a sage touched by enlightenment.
"This... don't tell me. The ordering?"
"Just so."
Pride spread across my face as I nodded.
"The Weapon Compendium must be seen as a far more supple and sophisticated standard than the Eighteen Weapons. Intelligence gathered from every corner of the rivers and lakes was compiled and arranged in the order of the armaments most commonly used. That is why."
"Ooooh."
"One could rightly call it the very crystallization of the Beggars' Sect's intelligence network. Now—what would happen, Gwak Mo hyeong, if you unfurled this in the midst of a gossip-lover's debate?"
"Ooooooh!"
I remember my begging bowl ran wonderfully full that day.
At any rate, so it stands. By the reckoning of the Weapon Compendium, the foremost of all armaments must be the sword—for it is the weapon wielded by more warriors than any other. According to the Beggars' Sect's own tallies, the sword alone accounts for half of all armaments in common use, so the title of King of All Weapons is, in truth, no exaggeration.
And where, then, dwells the king above the King of All Weapons—the foremost sword sect under heaven? Some would name the swift swords of Diancang; some, the phantom swords of Mount Hua; some, the heavy swords of the Namgung; and some, the flowing swords of Wudang.
The correct answer, one must conclude, is Wudang. From an informant's vantage, that is simply what the murim of today believes. The North venerates Shaolin; the South honors Wudang—words of reverence for the two great sects, the main beams that hold up the orthodox murim. All martial arts under heaven spring from Shaolin, says the one—every art in the world born of that gate. All sword arts under heaven turn toward Wudang, says the other—every blade in existence drawn toward that place. The foremost sword sect under heaven, by its own claim and the world's concession—that place was Wudang, holder of a seat among the Nine Sects.
Wudang, the next target I had set for myself, was a name of such greatness.
"But why go to Wudang?"
"Something will come up."
"Something?"
"It will, before long. Wait and see."
I did not give Chun-baek hyeong a direct answer. The hour was not yet ripe for it.
"Might I come along as well?"
"There will be no need for me to bring you, Chun-baek hyeong. You will be going all the same."
"Hm."
After a moment's pondering, Chun-baek hyeong seemed to give up on understanding.
"This is not another tale of stealing a rare elixir, I trust?"
"Hm."
He was likely tossing the quip with the Black Water Gate affair in mind, but I could not answer straight away. For the goal now facing me was to take the Taecheong-dan, the Supreme Clarity Elixir—the secret treasure of that honored Wudang.
"...It is not... is it?"
"Hm."
I resolved to treat Chun-baek hyeong's final question as unheard.
In any case... I would take the Taecheong-dan. I had laid ample groundwork even before my regression, so it was by no means impossible.
I had said of old that great undertakings have their season. That season had drawn near—close enough to touch—but it had not fully arrived.
With time still to spare, I passed a quiet stretch of days within the family. Of course, tranquility comes in grades of its own, so it would be right to call mine a hard-fought tranquility.
Hwoong— I swung the Formless Sword, clenched tight in my grip, with everything I had.
The Formless Sword is a qi-art that harbors monstrous force. Should an opponent fall even a hair short, the exchange risked maiming or death. Yet there was no hesitation in my hands—
BAM! A breath hissed between my teeth.
For my opponent was Uncle Yeo Baek.
Though Uncle had yet to shatter the frame of the Harmony Realm and set foot in the Mystic Realm, that meant only that his vessel had not yet expanded—not that his martial arts were wanting.
Spat—! As if to prove the point, Uncle Yeo Baek's sword qi, rising against my Formless Sword, pried open a gap of mere instants and slipped inside.
Whoosh— CLANG—! My Formless Sword and Uncle's sword qi slipped past one another at times; at others they crashed together, locked in contests of raw strength.
Shreee— THUD! I caught Uncle's kick square on my knee.
However supreme one's command of sword qi, a martial artist whose every form lay buried beneath the blade was second-rate all the same—and the fists and kicks Uncle Yeo Baek drove in at precisely the right moments were, indeed, first-rate. True to his renown as Captain of the Dancheon Family Guard, his arts were steeped in battlefield practicality, and they never failed to feed me fresh inspiration.
"Hahaha. Now it is your turn to teach me, boy."
Uncle Yeo Baek insists that he is the one learning martial arts from me, but that is not the truth of it. He draws his enlightenment from my realm, and I seek my lessons in his hard-won experience—so the two of us are growing together.
To any ordinary eye, ours would have looked like a vicious melee one could call a duel to the death and still undersell it—yet what we were engaged in was nothing more than a friendly bout, an extension of our long-running exchange of blades.
"Uncle, I will come at you harder now."
It was my way of saying he could afford a little more sincerity.
"Come, then."
Uncle said it with a proud ease, as though he had plenty still in reserve.
KWAAANG—! Uncle and I entangled once more in the open air.
As the old saying goes, nothing in this world beats a sturdy foundation. This was our time of honing and polishing—so that when opportunity came, we would close our hands around it without fail.