A Child Who Grew Up Too Fast
Jin Cheong-un buried his nose in the hem of his robe and sniffed.
That should just about do it.
Only after scrubbing himself raw by the well in the backyard had the smell finally come off. Fresh clothes dug out and pulled on, he stepped out of his room—then froze.
"Master, I hope you slept well last night? I've come to pay my morning respects."
Jeong So-ryong stood waiting, hands folded neatly in front of him, in a posture that seemed far too grown-up for a child.
"……What are you doing?"
"The book says you must always show proper courtesy to your Master. So I thought I'd try it."
Jin Cheong-un nodded, looking vaguely unsettled.
"W-well. Thank you."
"I'll come pay my respects every morning from now on."
You're going to do this every day?
And then, silence fell.
"……"
"……"
Jin Cheong-un felt a bead of cold sweat trickle down his neck.
How am I supposed to deal with a kid?
It struck him anew that he had never once held a real conversation with Jeong So-ryong—nothing beyond business.
It was So-ryong who broke the silence first.
"Master."
"Hm?"
"I've memorized everything you taught me last time. Could you check it for me?"
"You've memorized the whole incantation already?"
"Yes."
Watching the boy answer so confidently, Jin Cheong-un didn't get his hopes up. Clever or not, there was no way anyone could memorize over three hundred characters of breathing incantation along with every meridian route in the body in just a few days.
"Fine. Let's hear it."
A moment later, Jin Cheong-un doubted his own ears.
"It begins at the lower dantian. The lower dantian is the foundation of the corrected qi, and the meridian route is called the Sea of Qi—"
"……"
"—exhale the stale breath and draw in the new, building inner strength, and with utmost sincerity, align body and mind—"
Not a single stumble.
Jeong So-ryong, seated cross-legged on the back porch, recited the incantation without so much as a hesitation. He wasn't parroting it blindly, either—he was unpacking and explaining it as he went. That would have been impossible unless he had genuinely understood every word of it.
"That's enough. Hold on—let me check your body."
Jin Cheong-un placed his hand directly on So-ryong's mingmen point and sent a thread of qi flowing through.
His eyes went wide in an instant.
A channel opened?
A faint current of qi was moving through meridians that had been sealed solid. He had only taught breathing techniques—basic energy circulation—and already, however faintly, the turbid qi was being expelled.
"Hmmmm."
"Master, is something wrong?"
"No, it's not that, it's just…"
He trailed off, then asked abruptly,
"When you recite the incantation—have you ever felt something strange inside your body?"
Jeong So-ryong tilted his head.
"Hm. I wouldn't know about my own body, but I feel it from other people all the time."
"……!"
"It's a little different for each person. You feel solid, Master, and my sister… she used to be faint, but lately I feel her more and more clearly."
He's awakened qi perception. At ten years old—before he's even properly begun training!
A prodigy of the martial arts! A prodigy, he says? My disciple is a genius!
"Oh ho! Magnificent! Simply magnificent! You've already grasped that?"
"Huh? Um—yes?"
Jin Cheong-un broke into a wide grin and ruffled So-ryong's hair furiously.
"Focus on that feeling from now on. Understood?"
"Yes, Master!"
"Then shall we have a little talk?"
Jin Cheong-un nodded, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Come to think of it, I became a Master without ever having a proper conversation with my disciple. This doesn't come around every day, you know. If there's anything you're curious about—about this Master of yours—ask away."
"Curious about…"
Jeong So-ryong mulled it over for a moment, then spoke carefully.
"How strong are you in the Jianghu, Master?"
Jin Cheong-un let out a soft laugh. So the boy finally looks like a child for once.
"I couldn't say for certain, but I'd say I rank among the stronger ones."
"Really?"
"I even served as a secret bodyguard—a position reserved for only the handpicked warriors of the Alliance. A hidden master of a Jianghu crawling with experts like grains of sand on a beach. That would be me, I suppose."
"Wow."
Jeong So-ryong gaped in admiration, then tilted his head.
"But is it all right to tell me? Isn't it supposed to be secret?"
"There's no such thing as a perfect secret in this world."
"I see."
Anyone else would have said, what nonsense is that? But Jeong So-ryong only murmured, "That's so cool!"
"Well. I was fairly strong, once."
"Once?"
"I got injured and retired, remember?"
"Ah…"
Seeing So-ryong's face crumple, Jin Cheong-un chuckled again.
"I'm all healed now, so don't worry. You'll recover quickly too, So-ryong—just like this Master of yours did."
They were meant to be words of encouragement, but the boy's reaction was oddly strange. He smiled faintly and said,
"Just between you and me, Master… honestly, I would have been fine even if my illness never got cured."
"What?"
Jin Cheong-un's eyes went round.
"You see, I already know. That our family fell into poverty, that my sister works without rest—all of it is because of me."
A different expression settled over the boy's face, one Jin Cheong-un had never seen before.
"A physician once told us my treatment would cost a fortune. I figured it was better to just live like this than have my sister wear herself down paying for it."
"Even knowing you'd stay sick?"
"Being sick is something I can endure. I'm good at enduring."
The child smiled. Jin Cheong-un could not bring himself to smile back.
"I pretended not to notice, all this time. When my sister went out to draw water from the well and came back with red eyes. When she said she'd eaten at work, and skipped her meals at home."
In that instant, the two siblings' past days painted themselves across Jin Cheong-un's mind like a picture.
A younger brother who insisted he was fine while sick, afraid his sister would suffer. A sister who swallowed her tears and went out to work even as her heart broke in two.
That was how the two children had endured the hard days—through lies told for each other's sake.
"The reason my sister never sold the manor, even though she always complained about it—that's a lie too. You already figured it out, didn't you, Master?"
"I did."
"She badmouths Father, but deep down she believes he'll come back someday."
"……"
"I think she keeps the manor because if we leave it, Father will have nowhere to return to. Even though it's obvious he never will."
No—how am I supposed to respond to this?
Jin Cheong-un put on an awkward face and told an awkward lie.
"…Your father just left for somewhere far away, to find your medicine. He'll come back eventually."
At that, So-ryong answered flatly.
"I may be young, but I know what I know. Father abandoned us and ran away, didn't he? Still—thank you for trying to comfort me."
"R-right."
Silence fell once more.
After a moment, Jin Cheong-un asked quietly,
"Is that why you want to learn martial arts, too?"
"Yes. Now I want to protect my sister. I want to rebuild our family and grow strong."
Jeong So-ryong said it with force in his voice.
Going by his tone alone, he was already a man in his own right.
"I want to become someone like you, Master. Do you think I could?"
Only now did Jin Cheong-un understand. This child hadn't been so precocious simply because of his severed meridians or his illness.
Jeong So-ryong had simply grown up far too fast. No—he had been trying to grow up.
It was always that way, wasn't it?
Adults were more childish than children imagined, and children were more grown-up than adults ever realized.
If there was one difference, perhaps it was this: when an adult became a child again to comfort himself, a child became an adult to soothe someone else's sorrow.
Jeong So-ryong had learned to endure before he ever learned to whine, and to hide his tears behind a smile before he ever learned to cry.
A boy barely ten years old was shouldering, on those small shoulders, a burden meant for grown men.
"I hope you never turn out like me."
"…What?"
"You should become someone better than this Master of yours."
A strange feeling welled up in his chest.
What on earth is this emotion supposed to be?
"I'm heading out, so get ready and come to the annex. This Master has a lot to do today."
Scratching the back of his head, Jin Cheong-un made his way out through the backyard.
Master.
Then, gazing up at the sky, he murmured quietly to himself.
Was this how you felt, all those years?
This really is a strange feeling. It almost feels… like I've actually become someone's teacher.
Jin Cheong-un packed a travel bundle in his room—draft notes, contracts, and the rest.
Finish the business, then head straight to the Black Tiger Gang.
Out of pure habit, he reached to tuck the sword that stood leaning against the wall into his waistband—and that was when it happened.
"They say men of the Jianghu treasure their weapons like their own bodies. I can see it's really true."
Jeong So-ryong had come in and spoken up, eyes wide with curiosity.
"Hm?"
"You never take that sword off your body, Master."
Do I not?
Impossible. This was a thing I'd even planned to throw away.
"What are you talking about. I'm a human being—when I use the privy, or eat—"
"You carry it then, too. Every single time. And you're always fiddling with the hilt."
"I do?"
He felt oddly put out.
If the boy could say that much, then he really must have been gripping it unconsciously all this time.
Clunk.
Jin Cheong-un gazed down at the dull, blue-lit scabbard for a while.
The familiar blade looked somehow older today than it ever had. Grime had settled in places here and there, making it look almost shabby.
Right. It's not clean, is it.
At a glance, it was a battered, cheap iron sword. But anyone with a discerning eye needed only to look at the hilt to know this was no ordinary weapon.
The day he left the academy.
While the others each packed away their own treasures, Jin Cheong-un had clutched this one thing in his hand and thrown himself into the Martial Alliance.
This Blue Cloud Sword had been a second self, forged alongside his old days.
And here I'd sworn to the Alliance Leader that I'd be rid of it the moment I retired.
He'd said it while handing off every other poisoned blade in his collection.
So why—why had he kept unconsciously putting it off, time and time again?
"……"
Jin Cheong-un stood staring blankly for a long moment. Then he let out a long, slow breath.
And then, ever so slowly—truly slowly—he set the sword down on the wooden stand at the side of the room. All he was doing was putting it down. And yet the process took an eternity.
"Let's go."
"Yes… but what about the sword?"
"A master of this Master's caliber doesn't let himself be bound by any one weapon."
"Last time you said a warrior must treat his weapons like his own body?"
"Did I say that?"
"Yes."
Jin Cheong-un replied, utterly shameless.
"The rule changes from moment to moment."
"Ah! A different rule, then!"
"Flexibility is essential if you want to become a great warrior."
"Flexibility is essential, then!"
"Exactly that."
Jin Cheong-un took Jeong So-ryong with him and headed for the Baekun Inn.
Whenever the boy's breath grew ragged along the way, Jin Cheong-un offered to carry him, but So-ryong insisted on walking himself, trudging along stubbornly step by step.
Cute little thing.
And so they arrived at the Baekun Inn.
"Well, well! It's little So-ryong! Get in here, quick! And how's your body holding up?"
"I'm all right, thank you."
"I've laid out a bedroll in the spare room—go in and get some rest."
Seo Do-seok, the owner of the Baekun Inn, fussed over So-ryong like a true uncle by blood.
"I heard the situation from So-so this morning. Name's Seo Do-seok."
Jin Cheong-un gave a brief greeting, hands cupped in a fist salute.
"Jin Cheong-un. Sorry to impose on you like this."
"Impose? Nonsense! Those children are like family to me."
By all accounts, the kind innkeeper had doted on the Jeong siblings, feeding them and finding them work whenever he could.
"Oh, right—I hear you're refurbishing that old martial arts hall. You're taking it over as the new owner, are you?"
"That's right."
Seo Do-seok murmured with an odd look on his face.
"The Cheongun Martial Arts Academy, eh. There used to be quite the pack of little terrors over there, back in the day. Heh heh."
Jin Cheong-un's eyes widened without his meaning them to.
"You know the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy?"
"Of course I do. Most anyone who's lived in Yinghua Village their whole life remembers it."
"Is that so?"
Jin Cheong-un felt a quiet swell of pride.
That's right—our academy did have plenty of naturally gifted kids.
But at that moment, Seo Do-seok's whole body shuddered, and he said,
"Hard to forget when they made sure you never could. Those little hellions!"
Huh?
What was that?
"You have no idea how much chaos those kids stirred up before the hall suddenly shut its doors. No human being should be capable of that! No human being!"
"……"
"They collapsed the wall of my inn once, set a fire on the back hill another time… don't even get me started. I still get nightmares about them, I swear."
Jin Cheong-un quietly looked away.
"Surely not. They were just kids—I'm sure there was a reason for all of it."
"A reason? Ha! That—that what-do-you-call-it. The one that says human nature is wicked at its root—"
"You mean the theory that man's nature is evil?"
"That's it! Maybe it's the place, eh? The owner seemed like a decent fellow, but those brats were exactly that kind of creature!"
"…It wasn't quite that bad."
"Hm? What was that?"
"Nothing at all."
Does the man have dementia? He's clearly misremembering something.
Shff-shff.
Just then came the sound of footsteps.
Turning naturally toward the entrance, Jin Cheong-un's eyes met those of a group of men just stepping into the inn. The men glanced at him briefly, then turned their gaze to Seo Do-seok.
"Not serving dinner yet?"
"We are, we are! Come right in! Oh my, more guests!"
The men found seats and sat down wherever they pleased.
It was rather early for dinner, yet customers were already trickling in—the inn was clearly doing brisk business.
"I've held a busy man for far too long. You should be off as well."
"Hmm, well, that's true, but…"
Jin Cheong-un scratched the back of his head.
"I might as well stay for dinner since I'm here."
"Oh? Will you? Sit anywhere you like."
"Much obliged."
He rose and ambled across the room with unhurried ease.
Thud.
And sat down directly in front of the customers who had just walked in.
"……"
The men stared at Jin Cheong-un with peculiar expressions.
Jin Cheong-un spoke with complete indifference.
"Black Tiger Gang, are you."
In an instant, the smiles froze on their faces.