Letters Over Tea and Blood Valley Shadows
Danmok Hyeon-u believed that Ryeon had ended up that way because he hadn't properly protected her that day. That thought had cluttered his mind, causing his sword tip to waver and allowing a heart demon to take root. It was a miracle he hadn't fallen into qi deviation.
Danmok Hyeon-u still hadn't overcome his heart demon. Even after finishing his secluded training, he sent her ice candy, medicine, and all sorts of snacks but couldn't bring himself to visit her until Grandfather Danmok Cheon-gi ordered him to teach her literacy.
"Do you remember what I said? That to master the characters you've learned, you must write them often?"
"Yes!"
"From today on, exchange letters with each other once a day. Even one line is fine."
Danmok Bi, who these days was utterly absorbed in learning everything alongside his big sister, nodded eagerly with excitement. He was looking forward to replies from his sister Ryeon and Hwaryun.
Once the literacy lesson ended, it was tea time—or more precisely, time to drink the tea Ryeon brewed, as she insisted they all do it together.
Danmok Hyeon-u had tried to dissuade her, saying it was absurd for an uncle to be served tea by his niece every time, but Ryeon pushed back, claiming she wanted to practice the tea ceremony she'd learned from Grandfather.
'Let's see...'
Ryeon fiddled with her sleeve hem.
'Tch. Easier said than done!'
No one knew how to use this power called Spiritual Energy. It was a realm she had to pioneer on her own.
Even if she brewed tea every day to share with those around her and purified the environment to expend her Spiritual Energy, the next day it was full again, and the day after that, full again...
'This must be the anxiety of living hand-to-mouth, day by day.'
It wasn't a joke—she was truly living on a day-to-day basis with her life on the line.
Ryeon couldn't miss the chance to serve tea to three people at once like this. That was why she boiled the tea water, panting in the sweltering heat.
Ryeon carefully brewed four cups side by side and set them down. Danmok Hyeon-u smiled warmly at the boys.
"This is brewed by your sister herself, so always drink it with gratitude."
"Yes! Thank you, Sister."
"Thank you, Sister."
Every day they studied letters, every day they drank tea, Danmok Hyeon-u said the same thing every day, and the boys expressed their thanks every day. Ryeon just beamed.
'Drink up and grow big and strong...'
"The people of Hangzhou would come bearing a thousand gold pieces for just one sip of this tea."
Danmok Hyeon-u took a sip and smiled.
Ryeon quietly gazed down at her teacup.
'As if.'
There were no new tea leaves bought this year among them—all were several years old. They barely tasted edible, but Danmok Hyeon-u always praised her to the skies.
Then, Danmok Bi—who usually squirmed in boredom during tea time, gulping it down—would add his short praises for his sister's tea: incredibly delicious, as good as yesterday's rice cakes, a fairy might drop by for a sip. He recycled those every three days.
She'd smile at how cute her little brother was, and then her eyes would catch Hwaryun beside him, smirking silently.
She could tell just from his eyes. He was teasing her with his gaze alone.
Even if the tea was good, could an eight-year-old's wobbly brewing really rival a fairy's?
'This guy.'
"It's not just empty words, Ryeon. Your deft hands and deep heart come through in the taste. I can already see that when you learn the sword from the Grand Patriarch, your achievements will stand out. Your father also..."
Danmok Hyeon-u trailed off abruptly.
Just as the mood grew awkward for a moment, Danmok Bi burst in.
"Sister! You're learning the sword from Grandpa?"
His face screamed pure envy.
Danmok Hyeon-u's briefly stiffened expression softened right away.
"Once you memorize the Thousand Character Classic, that's the deal. Bi, if you memorize your letters too, the Grand Patriarch will teach you swordsmanship."
"Yes! I'll memorize them all!"
"Good, good. Once you do, I'll give you a reward too. All three of you."
At the word "reward," Danmok Bi's eyes sparkled.
Ryeon nodded, recalling how she'd heard something similar from Danmok Cheon-gi, which had led to these literacy lessons.
Then she glanced sideways. Hwaryun, who had started to feign delight at Danmok Hyeon-u's words only to end up looking indifferent, met her eyes and smirked.
The cicadas screamed as if tearing at her eardrums.
Ryeon lay sprawled on the bamboo mat atop her bed, panting from the heat, flipping through the mountain of books piled like a hill one by one.
'To wipe out those Blood Valley bastards, I need to know something too.'
She had lived in a future where Blood Valley rampaged after a decade or so and died—letting it happen was out of the question.
She didn't know if she could handle it alone, but she couldn't just sit idle either.
So, using literacy lessons as an excuse, she'd hauled every related book from the library...
'Blood Valley's blood techniques. Destructive and brutal. Claw-like gashes are their hallmark. No one has discovered anything related to their heart methods yet...'
A person accumulates one unit of neigong over sixty years through basic abdominal breathing—exhaling stale qi and inhaling fresh qi, known as Togo Napsin.
Good heart methods accumulate it faster, but they couldn't compress decades into a year or two.
Not even the best elixirs could change that. Absorbing an elixir's spiritual energy into neigong required proper heart methods and qi circulation meditation for a set time.
Yet Blood Valley warriors had none of that. From their swordplay, they seemed to have trained only a year or two, yet they poured out endlessly with over a unit of neigong, rampaging madly.
Anyone with discernment knew it was evil martial arts, so they needed to uncover how it was evil and crush it—but no one could.
Blood Valley's valley lord had changed three or four times, and all three major factions of the Murim Alliance had dug deep, to no avail. Even the Black Heaven Union, which didn't mind shady means, had turned over every stone with eyes blazing—and still failed.
'Can a heart method that accumulates neigong that fast even exist?'
There was debate about force-feeding massive elixirs, but it was debunked. The Zhuge Clan calculated that with that kind of funding, they'd conquer Murim with gold, not force.
'Anyway, regardless of the method, their neigong's nature invites madness before long... and that madness only subsides by drinking human blood.'
Ryeon flipped the pages slowly. Thanks to her Divine Eye, just skimming once etched it clearly in her mind.
'Abnormal vitality of blood technique practitioners. They can move for half a shichen even after a heart stab. And the Blood Valley lord possesses several Murim treasures? Treasures? What?'
Ryeon mulled over the "treasures" she knew, then closed the book, exhausted by the heat.
Blood Valley mattered, but wasn't that after she survived?
Just then, the door to her quarters quietly opened.
"Mm? Hwaryun?"
"You said you were lying down because of the heat, and you really are?"
Hwaryun looked triumphant at the sight of her.
Ryeon sat up with a sullen expression.
Her quarters were the coolest in the estate, but whenever Ryeon stepped out briefly, she'd come back sweltering and panting.
Her wet nurse, Jang ssi, pitied her greatly, saying it must be the family trait of the women in this house being weak to heat, passed down from ancestors.
"Just wait till winter."
She melted into mush in summer but perked up in winter—that was another trait.
Even seeing Ryeon huffing, Hwaryun just shrugged and scanned the books strewn about haphazardly.
"What's this... Blood Valley?"
Ryeon felt a needless pang of guilt and quickly closed the books.
"Have you ever seen Blood Valley?"
The Dongting Blood Incident, their clash with Blood Valley, had been a huge deal, but that was over twenty years ago. Ten years change the rivers and mountains twice over, so now "Blood Valley" was just occasional elders' slang.
Like an old man downing a bottle of liquor and yelling behind him, "Even Blood Valley would spit this out!"—and then blades would fly.
"...Never seen 'em, but I know. The bloodsuckers."
"I see..."
"Why's Sister reading this?"
"W-well... Our house is one pillar of the righteous Murim. As the eldest grandchild, I need to know history."
Hwaryun looked at her with mild surprise.
"And my grandfather and father too... because of them."
Danmok Hyeon-seong's death had been from a duel with the Geum Gajang lord, but the injuries from the Dongting Blood Incident had burned away his life force before that. Without them, the once-in-a-millennium prodigy wouldn't have fallen to a duel with Hangzhou's upstart Geum Gajang.