The Starlit Trajectory
“This tea was from you too, wasn’t it?”
“Huh? How did you know?”
Ryeon widened her eyes and stared. Danmok Cheon-gi took a sip of the porridge and clicked his tongue.
“The family’s eldest grandchild stirring porridge in the kitchen and brewing tea—quite the busy one, eh.”
“Pardon?”
Gang-rip flinched at the shoulders.
The young miss is the eldest grandchild, sure, but…
For some reason, the word felt heavier than usual. “Eldest grandchild” often implied the heir to the heir.
Danmok Ryeon was the firstborn of the previous young lord, Danmok Hyeon-seong, so if nothing had gone wrong, she would naturally have become the young lord. But circumstances had differed until now. Danmok Hyeon-seong had died young, and Ryeon had merely preserved her place until turning seven. The family had avoided calling her the eldest grandchild outright.
Yet now, the grand patriarch was referring to his firstborn granddaughter as such, and it carried more weight than ever.
Before Gang-rip’s thoughts could linger, however, Danmok Cheon-gi rose to his feet. His robes fluttered with the motion.
“Ryeon, since it was your enlightenment that granted this, you should be the first to witness it. Let’s go.”
The girl and steward gazed at his retreating back before hurrying after him.
The inner courtyard of Wolyeongjae was deathly still. Danmok Cheon-gi walked across the firmly packed earth without leaving a single footprint, then slowly drew his sword.
Ryeon felt his aura on her skin and rounded her eyes.
Is this what an expert’s enlightenment feels like?
He hadn’t undergone any intense training during those days of meditation, yet his presence and flow were utterly transformed. Like sensing the sky’s deeper blue no matter its height, Ryeon could clearly see the change in him.
Danmok Cheon-gi began with slow sword movements—the flow of Falling Star Twelve Swords, but agonizingly slower than she remembered. Yet there was no disruption in that slowness, like a comet’s tail stretching long without deviation.
When he finally completed the final form with heavy finality,
“A Danmok swordsman’s blade must swing with intent so clear that all may comprehend it.”
his path bore no footprints, only twelve distinct sword marks boldly etched into the ground.
That intent rang clear, resounding through the heavens.
Ryeon beamed.
In her vision, inked characters scrolled up like brushstrokes.
The family was entering a new phase. Ryeon sensed it instinctively.
* * *
Before dawn, when his granddaughter still slumbered, Danmok Cheon-gi swung his sword in the empty courtyard of Wolyeongjae.
The chronic pain in his waist that had tormented him for decades, and the unstable dantian, were gone. The wound from Blood Valley’s poison, which had caused endless despair, had healed clean away.
Danmok Cheon-gi recognized this as a minor exchange of bones and washing of marrow.
He gazed at his sword tip, steady without tremor. Beyond it, he recalled the sword trajectory traced by the girl’s chopsticks.
He retraced it slowly in his mind. A shiver ran down his spine.
How is this possible…?
The sword path he’d sought his entire life, revealed at his young granddaughter’s fingertips.
The clear energy in the tea she’d offered. The airflow that purified the air and eased his breath.
Come to think of it, they said the chicken she raised turned into a phoenix?
He’d dismissed such tales as nonsense, but now he couldn’t ignore them. No—he understood them all.
Danmok Cheon-gi smiled faintly and closed his eyes. The girl’s starry eyes, like her grandmother’s, sparkled vividly in his mind.
Heaven and earth, spirits divine…
His chest tightened. Tracing back, he realized the purpose behind every busy errand his granddaughter had run in Wolyeongjae.
She knew her immense power made her frail, preventing inner energy cultivation—yet she’d striven to aid her family with it. Circling him ceaselessly during his enlightenment pursuit, bolstering him with that power.
“Gang-rip, you’ve come?”
“Patriarch…”
Sheathing his sword and turning, he saw Gang-rip standing with a face full of awe. As a longtime steward of a murim family, Gang-rip knew from the swordplay alone that Danmok Cheon-gi had surpassed his former strength.
Danmok Cheon-gi chuckled at the fuss and waved him off, heading inside. Only after repeated congratulations did Gang-rip begin his report on backlog.
“Hm. So in the meantime, Wi-hak finally topped the provincial exam?”
The first news from Gang-rip was Gyeon Wiun’s third brother, Gyeon Wihak, achieving zhangyuan in the provincial imperial exams.
“Yes, all of Hangzhou is in an uproar. The merchant lord already sent gifts to the young miss, crediting Qinglian Water for it. Oh! Among them was a Hyangrinjeok, and Uncle Hyeon-u was thrilled, saying he’d teach her to play the flute.”
Danmok Cheon-gi nearly scoffed at first, but his expression softened at Danmok Hyeon-u’s joy, eyes lowering mistily.
“Hyangrinjeok—that thing the merchant cherishes so much he wouldn’t even show me? And he gave it to Ryeon?”
“It was one of the hastily sent gifts.”
“Heh. His head’s probably sparkling with stars thinking of the business from Qinglian Water.”
Danmok Cheon-gi muttered as if grumbling. Gang-rip smiled.
“He said he’d send gifts befitting the grand patriarch’s joyous occasion.”
“Isn’t that just saying to cough up something for my son’s achievement too?”
“It’s not just passing—it’s zhangyuan. Don’t we deserve some joy in reciprocating? Aunt Hyeon-yo’s already bustling to pick fine items.”
“Anything else noteworthy?”
“Yes. Though…”
Gang-rip hesitated before speaking.
“The Geum Family’s movements seem a bit unusual.”
A bitter shadow crossed Danmok Cheon-gi’s smile.
“Just them? With my breakthrough, every dojo in Hangzhou must be buzzing.”
True enough. If Gyeon Wihak had upended the scholarly Wen families of Hangzhou, Danmok Cheon-gi had shaken all the martial clans. Naturally, the Geum Family—currently outshining Danmok in Hangzhou—would stir.
“But no need to worry about that now.”
Danmok Cheon-gi clenched and unclenched his fist repeatedly, recalling his granddaughter’s starry eyes. Particles twinkling like stars swam within. What lay beyond that starlight? Dawn. The light would rise and blaze anew.
“More importantly, it’s time to send word to Henan Province.”
“To Henan… a messenger?”
Henan housed the Murim Alliance—formed by Black Heaven Union, Machun-gyo, and White Dao Alliance against the great evil of Blood Valley. There, Danmok Cheon-gi’s daughter, Danmok Hyeon-yo, served with her husband as external branch lord and acting patriarch.
“Tell the external lord it’s time to return. She’s toiled enough at the alliance—time to rest. Come back to the family.”
Gang-rip swallowed dryly. The external branch lord was second daughter Danmok Hyeon-yo. “Toil enough, time to rest” meant relinquishing the acting patriarch role. Gang-rip sensed trouble brewing.
* * *
“Haha, what, you think I’m some prodigy? I figured he was just boozing, whoring, and partying every day. How would I know when he squeezed in studying?”
Gyeon Wiun guffawed. The deputy manager of Ihhwa Merchant Guild, mid-congratulations, flushed briefly before composing himself.
The deputy hailed from distant northern Shaanxi, not as fixated on turning sons into officials as Huizhou merchants. But with several children, one or two in office wasn’t bad. Trading often with Mansong Merchant Group, he’d schooled his son alongside Gyeon Wihak’s—only for his boy to nearly fail spectacularly while Wihak took zhangyuan.
If not for a separate meeting with the examiner for “pleasantries,” that is.
We played side-by-side, yet one tops the exam and the other barely passes? Makes no sense.
Even in play, his son had been locally renowned as brilliant, groomed for officialdom since youth.
“Still, truly impressive. Though I heard…”
The deputy ventured cautiously.
His son mentioned Gyeon Wihak tapping a small vial on his brow or temples when fatigued. A gift from a cherished niece-like figure, aiding study, he’d said.