"What? Why?!"
“What? Why?!”
“That child has a body that cannot accumulate neigong.”
An icy silence descended in an instant. Danmok Han-so opened his mouth, then snapped it shut roughly. In that gap, Danmok Cheon-gi quietly added, “I couldn't bring myself to tell you. Forgive me for bringing it up only now.”
He couldn't easily speak of how his devoted sacrifice—losing his own neigong—had only just barely revived a child who couldn't even accumulate it herself.
“Neigong... What? Why... why can't she accumulate neigong?”
Danmok Han-so's voice was a whisper. At first bewildered, then incredulous, and finally trembling with some inexplicable anger.
It wasn't regret over the neigong he'd poured into her.
“Don't tell me something went wrong during the Balsa Sesu...”
“No, nothing like that. Don't even think it. Without you, she wouldn't have even opened her eyes. Every procedure was flawless.”
Danmok Han-so's fingertips trembled faintly.
“Neigong... Really... really?”
“Yes.”
He himself could no longer stay in the family after merely losing part of his neigong. He knew too well what he'd cast aside.
But to be unable to accumulate it from the start...
“Does... does Young Miss Ryeon know about this?”
“...Yes, she knows.”
“And she still learned swordsmanship and took an interest in dao arts, rolling around in my lessons for a whole month?”
“Yes.”
As he answered, Danmok Cheon-gi carefully observed Danmok Han-so. Normally, he would have noticed that gaze immediately, but now he was utterly oblivious.
And at the end of that silence, for some reason, Danmok Han-so's face cleared as he spoke.
“She's still Young Miss Ryeon.”
“What?”
“Even without neigong—or arms and legs, for that matter—I believe she's the one who should become the next family head.”
Danmok Cheon-gi let out a hollow chuckle. Not because he saw disloyalty in Han-so presuming to name the next head.
“This is a murim clan.”
“I know.”
“You, neither direct lineage nor the most scholarly, became the top of Yuseong Sibalsuk because in the clan, only I and Hyeon-seong could best you with your dao.”
“I know.”
“So how could someone without neigong lead the clan and become master of you and Yuseong Sibalsuk? You're out of your mind.”
“Before I met Young Miss Ryeon, I would've thought the same.”
“But seeing Ryeon changed your mind?”
Danmok Han-so grumbled. “Don't you feel the same deep down, Family Head? When people start talking more, it usually means...”
“You rascal!”
Danmok Cheon-gi shouted as if angry, but Danmok Han-so didn't even blink.
Those with true power don't need to raise their voices. They settle things with strength. Shouting means they want something else.
If not, when Han-so first brought up Ryeon, Cheon-gi would have shut him down and punished him on the spot. The former head and Yuseong Sibalsuk leader couldn't tolerate differing views on the next head.
Which meant...
“Hyeon-yo mentioned the next head too, but I put it off. What could we do with children not even ten yet?”
“Even if Young Miss Ryeon were five instead of nine, I'd still say her. Though the outer hall leader might see it differently.”
“...In your eyes too, Ryeon seemed... that talented?”
Danmok Han-so reflected on the day he'd achieved his breakthrough.
He'd grumbled to Danmok Cheon-gi, but teaching Ryeon and Seong had been deeply enjoyable. It had been ages since he'd instructed a young disciple. Even before wandering from the clan, he'd guided the sword instructors under Yuseong Sibalsuk, but his signature weapon was the dao, not the sword.
Yet it wasn't all joy. The children's ideas bounced in ways he never expected, startling him.
And Ryeon's occasional strikes. The direction and momentum of her dao swings. Her flexible mind interpreting, understanding, and embodying the forms—unfolding into true dao arts.
All things he'd pursued his whole life, yet from her hands, they felt utterly alien, like something new.
If she'd just been a clueless child flailing about, poorly executing everything, he could have dismissed it.
But Danmok Han-so wasn't the type.
Struggling with that disconnect, he'd absurdly grasped the subtlety of his dao art's final form.
Looking back, every move she'd made in his lessons embodied that form's variations.
He'd never once regretted the neigong poured into her Balsa Sesu, but in that moment, he realized he'd received far more than he'd given.
“Well... I don't know about 'talent' like grabbing an insurmountable wall by the hair and hurling it over. Isn't that what they call heaven, earth, and gods? Or Buddha?”
“Is this a temple or a monastery? Aren't we the most worldly clan?”
“Exactly.”
Danmok Cheon-gi scowled as if it were nonsense, but he couldn't hide his faint smile.
Ryeon's eyes clearly saw such things. He'd gained insight from her fingertips himself.
Her movements were special. Even before ten, already so.
In her immature, childish body, she showed answers as if gazing down from the heavens.
How was that possible?
Others might shy from the mystery, speculate other causes, delude themselves into thinking they'd achieved it alone—but not Han-so.
He let unheard tales pass, hearing them anew the next day, but what his eyes saw, he never doubted.
And what he couldn't comprehend, he accepted as is. He lacked the wit to grasp all the world's workings.
“Still, we must bide our time.”
Danmok Cheon-gi spoke calmly. Danmok Han-so gazed at him quietly, then nodded.
Some forces slowly drag down the heavens and upheave the earth. No one knows until it's done, so discussing the greater good comes after.
“I never expected you'd mingle so enjoyably with the Danmok clan, Madam.”
Geum Jeokgeol said quietly.
Song Yeongnang, having confirmed Geum Jongha—reviewing today's sparring late into the night—had finally fallen asleep with teary eyes, shot him a glare.
“And if I didn't? Plan to war with them in Hangzhou forever?”
“Not war, but...”
Though he said not, it would be half a real war. Struggling for regional dominance wasn't child's play.
“So we'll rub shoulders till we die, right?”
“How could that be.”
Geum Jeokgeol didn't seem truly ignorant, though his thoughts appeared tangled. Song Yeongnang gladly answered.
“We've rooted firmly in Hangzhou. Even the Danmok clan can't sweep us away easily. It'd be tough. But we can't fully drive out the Danmok clan either.”
They hadn't managed when the former head secluded himself and the eldest son died. It'd only get harder now.
History and tradition's latent power was fearsome. Hiding through times that change empires, and with one stretch from Danmok Cheon-gi, all Zhejiang stirred.
“True enough.”
“So what choice? If we're stuck together anyway, isn't it better to get along and enjoy it?”
Lesser factions wouldn't dream of ousting a clan that size. Only because they were Geum Family did they dare try once in Hangzhou.
“Will they truly accept us like that?”
Song Yeongnang smiled softly. “Haven't you seen Madam Wijicheong?”
“She's gentle, but powerless—an inner hall lady. Real authority lies with the outer hall leader.”
“If that outer hall leader can't defy the inner hall lady's words, what does it matter?”
Geum Jeokgeol raised one eyebrow. Song Yeongnang burst into laughter.
“Born too beautifully, with such proud, cold temperament—how many friends could surround her? Envy, jealousy; feeling inferior alone while ignoring others; blind worship; desperate clinging to do something. That's probably all.”
Her virtues buried under beauty, her flaws magnified by it.
Song Yeongnang could clearly see the path she'd walked through her clan's upheaval.