Promises and Endless Gratitude
"Yeah. Keep listening to your big sister like that. Even when you're all grown up. Got it? Promise?"
Hwaryun, about to answer that he understood, hesitated and stopped.
"What if I break the promise?"
"What if you break it?"
Already trying to get out of it? Ryeon thought, nearly bursting into laughter, but she held it back.
"Hmph. Then I'm not talking to you anymore."
Ryeon crossed her arms primly and huffed.
"You're never gonna talk to me again?"
"Not forever. Just for a hundred nights."
"A hundred nights without talking? Can't it be just ten days?"
"What kind of grand achievement is ten days?"
"Is this a grand achievement?"
"Of course it is. Raising baby Hwaryun."
"If it's raising a kid, then yeah, you gotta not talk for a hundred nights."
Ryeon frowned, conceding the point, but then suddenly flicked Hwaryun hard on the forehead.
"Were you planning to break it from the start? If you keep the promise, we can talk every single day."
But Hwaryun, clutching his forehead, had no room to argue back.
Just then, someone on the deck mustered tremendous courage.
"G-G-G-Gr-... Grandmaster Wumwolgeom..."
It was the very martial artist who had just knocked over the kumquat basket. His whole body flushed red as if burning with tension.
As he addressed Danmok Cheon-gi, everyone on deck gazed at him with eyes mixed with jealousy, admiration, and envy.
The moment Danmok Cheon-gi, holding a go stone, lifted his head, the deck fell deathly silent, with only the sound of water lapping against the hull.
"Hm? You know me?"
He had noticed the man approaching from the start, so there was no surprise, but it was odd for a stranger to speak up. Danmok Cheon-gi glanced alternately at the man and his own children, as if asking if they knew him. The two shook their heads.
The man swallowed hard and opened his mouth.
"I-I'm... J-Jin... Jin Cheon-nak."
By the time he got that far, his face looked ready to burst.
He glanced down at his palm—half-smudged ink, but written in tiny characters like a script of what to say.
"When Blood Valley attacked, y-you... saved us... and so I joined a small dojo and learned the sword... My little brother does kumquat farming, and when I heard you were heading to Kyunghang Yunryeon and might pass this way, I thought maybe I could give thanks... so I brought kumquats... the kumquats... these..."
His words tumbled out nonstop, leaving him breathless and his face even redder by the end.
Danmok Cheon-gi blinked at the sudden flood, then narrowed his eyes at "kumquats" and slowly recalled the past.
"Ah, yes, I remember. It was when I passed through Guangdong Province... A couple had planted a kumquat tree for their children. The ones they served me were fresh and very sweet."
"...!"
Jin Cheon-nak stiffened, staring at Danmok Cheon-gi in disbelief.
"You... remember?"
"You had three brothers, down to the youngest, didn't you? Your two younger brothers are the ones farming kumquats now?"
"Ah, the youngest... he's studying to be a scholar."
With that, Jin Cheon-nak hurriedly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Then, remembering he hadn't come just to share his story, he gripped his gift tighter.
But Danmok Cheon-gi spoke first.
"Yet you came all the way from Guangdong to here? It's no short journey."
"N-No, sir! My brother and I... we live in Zhejiang Province now! Kumquats don't grow up north normally, but my brother improved the breed, so... now they can be cultivated even in Zhejiang..."
Jin Cheon-nak wanted to smack his own head. As if Danmok Cheon-gi cared about kumquat breeding!
"So... that's why... I came all this way... to thank you for saving us back then... Our parents never forgot their gratitude until their dying days. And, um, I brought letters from my brothers and our village folk too!"
Jin Cheon-nak fumbled hastily into his bosom. Normally, such a move opposite a martial artist would have swords drawn—who knew what might come out!—but before Danmok Cheon-gi, no one stirred.
Forgetting how his tense fumbling looked to others, Jin Cheon-nak finally thrust out a bundle of letters and a box of kumquats, his hands trembling.
"It-It’s an honor... a great honor to meet you again... Thank you for saving us back then. I-I heard rumors you’d been unwell and not seeing guests, so I couldn’t come sooner... It took courage... until now. Forgive me... please forgive..."
Tears plopped from Jin Cheon-nak's eyes onto the letters as he spoke. Startled, he tried to wipe the spots, only smearing ink from his palm and panicking more.
Danmok Cheon-gi watched blankly for a moment, then smiled faintly and took the box and letters from his hands.
"How is a martial artist so full of tears?"
"I-I'm sorry... I regretted not coming sooner... so I came like this... presuming despite the rudeness..."
"Coming to give thanks—how could that be a bother?"
"There must be thousands, tens of thousands like me in the Central Plains martial world... If they all came to see you, it might trouble you..."
This time, Danmok Cheon-gi couldn't let it pass.
Jin Cheon-nak wiped surging tears with his sleeve nonstop. Suddenly, it struck him that skipping thanks out of fear of being a nuisance was wrong. He'd fidgeted ever since, lacking the courage to cross the high threshold of the Danmok estate, until coming here.
Watching quietly beside them, Danmok Hyeon-yo and Danmok Hyeon-u's eyes reddened too.
Starting with Jin Cheon-nak, everyone aboard approached Danmok Cheon-gi one by one, offering small gifts and thanks.
Realizing they'd boarded this boat to Yangju just for a chance to speak to him, Danmok Cheon-gi felt a bit flustered but chuckled.
The line of gratitude stretched endlessly.
* * *
"I... must've been busier than I thought."
"What are you even talking about?"
Hwaryun grumbled, peeling tangerines and placing them near Ryeon.
Pretending seasickness, Ryeon lay in the cabin.
The line of people boarding to thank her grandfather— just seeing it swelled the heart.
There, Ryeon and Danmok Cheon-gi had a brilliant idea simultaneously.
Most who boarded recklessly for a word with the world's greatest were martial artists. They valued his advice above gold.
Since it was fate, why not exchange pointers with those needing counsel? Everyone cheered at Danmok Cheon-gi's suggestion.
Beside him, Ryeon spread out paper and brush, adding her Divine Eye insights to his advice, organizing and handing sheets one by one.
It started well.
Until then, feigning seasickness, Ryeon had rolled kumquats in her hand, gazing at the rippling canal waters. Reading the glaring red warning.
Current Spiritual Energy: 75 / 120
Warning! Maintain Spiritual Energy at 60 or below.
Remaining Lifespan: 3 weeks, 5 hours
Examining so many with Divine Eye expended Spiritual Energy, but those learning would boost her Haengun points, and their growth would aid long-term against Blood Valley!
That's why education is a century-long plan. I'll start with a decade.
Grinning at the thought, she worked hard... but got too absorbed.
Her overflowing Spiritual Energy, when she snapped out of it, had just 10 left.
As her hand paused briefly on the last sheet for the final person, Hwaryun—stuck right beside her—and Danmok Cheon-gi noticed first.
She grabbed Hwaryun, whose face hardened to scold her, claiming seasickness.
Danmok Hyeon-u fussed that of course she'd tire after writing half a day among grandfather and adults like a child, so Ryeon came below with Hwaryun.
Meanwhile, estate folk visited one by one, fretting greatly. Danmok Bi clung tearfully beside her.