The Way of a True Teacher
"……And that's how I ended up not being able to join."
Jin Cheong-un said this as he sprawled across his chair, wiggling the tips of his feet.
Barely had she finished being happy about seeing her master again after several days when Jeong So-so's eyes began to tremble as if an earthquake had struck.
"Wait, what happened? You said you were just going to pay your respects and come home!"
"That was the plan."
"And then you suddenly headbutted the vice president and raised havoc in the middle of their meeting……?"
"Mm."
Jin Cheong-un spoke as he crunched through the refreshments Jeong So-so had set out for him, wearing an expression of supreme boredom.
"So, yeah. That's how it went."
"No."
Jeong So-so opened her mouth after a moment of speechlessness.
"So you'll never be able to join now?"
"Ah-ah. Not 'can't' — I choose not to. Confucius said the gentleman understands righteousness while the petty man understands profit, and I, your master, am a gentleman the likes of which the world has never seen. How could I conspire with such petty men and abandon my integrity just because times got hard?"
Frankly, it was a rather cool-sounding thing to say.
If only he hadn't delivered it slumped in his chair, waving the hand clutching a pastry.
"I honestly can't follow the situation at all, so could you explain in more detail?"
"Mmm. Well, if I had to explain what happened……"
Jin Cheong-un finally began his explanation.
Any other master would have ended it with 'that's just how it is,' but Jin Cheong-un didn't want to.
Because if I obsessed over my authority as a master, I'd end up just like those old-fogey association executives.
He wanted the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy to be a place run not by the master alone, but together with his disciples.
Maybe they'd be disappointed, thinking his choice hadn't been mature, that he'd lacked patience…….
"You insane bastards!"
Hm?
What was that, So-so?
"The association were that kind of scum? People like that go around calling themselves teachers? Did they eat their age through their backside, seriously!"
"Wh-what hole?"
"Don't give me that 'disadvantages' nonsense! How dare these people — how dare they disrespect our master?!"
"C-calm down, So-so. Okay?"
"If I'd been there, I would've grabbed that vice president by the hair and torn it all out until he was bald!"
Jin Cheong-un was flustered watching Jeong So-so rage like she was about to breathe fire.
Who on earth had she learned this from? Definitely her big brother. Definitely not from him.
"Anyway, that's how it is, so I'd like you all to understand my decision."
"Of course, Master."
"Mm."
At that point, Jeong So-ryong, who had been nodding along, asked a question.
"Master, but will you be all right?"
"About what?"
"About letting the association be. People that petty will certainly retaliate somehow."
It was Jeong So-ryong as always — speaking with a calm intelligence that belonged to someone four or five times his age.
Jin Cheong-un nodded.
"Probably. They won't just let it go."
"Will you be okay?"
"Don't worry. Eh, it'll work out somehow."
Jin Cheong-un answered indifferently.
But at those words, Jeong So-ryong's eyes lit up.
"As expected of Master — you already have a plan?"
"Hm? A plan?"
Jeong So-so smirked and jabbed her brother.
"What do you mean 'hm?' Of course! You think Master would stir up trouble for nothing? He'd have calculated everything first."
"I know. I just brought it up because I was a little worried."
"Master! We believe in you, no matter what!"
"Me too!"
The Jeong siblings — his nephew and niece and his disciples — looked up at him with eyes sparkling.
Jin Cheong-un's back broke out in a faint cold sweat.
I don't have any plan at all…….
Faced with those eyes, he couldn't possibly say that martial academy life might get a bit difficult for a while. In the end, Jin Cheong-un was forced to nod, however reluctantly.
The morning sunlight was warm.
The familiar chirping of birds tickled the ears.
Geum Tae-bang, Chief Bailiff of Yinghua Village, quietly gazed out the window as he took a sip of tea.
Sluuurp!
A single cup of tea to start the morning.
Geum Tae-bang had kept this ritual for decades.
What could be truer happiness than a daily routine repeated every day? Boring, you say? Perish the thought. When you live thanking every single moment, how could there be room for boredom?
Once in a while, Geum Tae-bang even set out a bowl of water and prayed to the heavens — that this modest life might continue, that this peace might never be broken.
And the heavens had turned away from his prayers.
"That's how it happened, Chief Bailiff Geum."
"……."
"What do you think? Surely you can't just leave such an organization alone — one that torments good, honest commoners like me?"
Watching Jin Cheong-un, who had come to the government office first thing in the morning, Geum Tae-bang muttered with hollow eyes.
"And so tormenting honest officials is fine, is it……?"
"What was that?"
"N-nothing at all."
Geum Tae-bang let out a long sigh.
"So what is it you want from me?"
"What could a humble countryman like myself dare to want from you, who serve the ancestral shrines and the state? I only hope that you will punish these villains who disturb the people's livelihood, in accordance with the solemn law of the land."
According to the solemn law of the land, you're already on death row, you bastard.
Jianghu folk hate getting tangled up with the authorities in the first place! Act like a proper martial artist — insist on non-interference and disrespect officials like everyone else does!
Why! Why, oh why does he keep coming here to make my life miserable!
Geum Tae-bang steadied himself with his tea and spoke.
"W-well, in any case, I understand the situation. It seems you visited the — ahem — the Friendly Exchange Through Arms, was it? I heard the atmosphere there has been quite something lately……"
"Making friends through martial arts? What is that supposed to be?"
"Ah, that's the association's original name."
The Analects mention gathering friends through learning and helping one another grow virtuous through those friendships. It seemed they'd simply swapped 'learning' for 'martial arts.'
An old name, you say? Honestly it sounds more respectable than that filthy long-winded regional-martial-academy whatever-it's-called.
Why had they gone and changed it in the first place?
Geum Tae-bang sighed deeply.
"It wasn't that kind of gathering back in my master's day……. Ahh, how time flies."
"You mean your master?"
"Mm. That would be the father of that Baek Gun-ak fellow. I studied under him myself when I was young."
Jin Cheong-un's eyes went round.
Geum Tae-bang continued with a bitter face.
"My master was the most respected man in Yichang, where learning was scarce. Plenty of the masters running the schools and academies around here were his disciples."
"Then how did such a scumbag get born under such an admirable man?"
"Th-that's Vice Master Baek you're talking about. Please, watch your tongue……."
Geum Tae-bang's expression turned sour.
"Gun-ak was always an ambitious one. He talked about wanting to make a name for himself beyond Yichang, in the big waters. Said he wanted to turn White Horse Academy into one of the Three Great Academies of the world……"
"The Three Great Academies."
So that was why they'd been fattening up the association? Now it was starting to make some sense.
"My master tried to stop him, but well, when did he ever listen?"
"I heard he's bedridden these days."
"That's right. The Friendly Exchange Through Arms changed around the same time my master withdrew from the front lines due to his illness. In any case, I understand the situation, but……"
Clink.
Geum Tae-bang set down his teacup and carefully removed his lips from the rim.
"This seems to be a problem I can do nothing about."
FLASH!
"What did you just say?"
"Eep."
Those eyes! Why are you baring those eyes like that, you bastard!
"L-look, the martial arts association is, from the government's standpoint, a perfectly fair commercial enterprise."
Jin Cheong-un's expression immediately twisted crooked. Suddenly crossing his legs and leaning back against his chair, he gave a jerk of his chin.
"Do go on."
"A man who draws a government salary can hardly go oppressing merchants at will, can he?"
"Are they not tormenting and oppressing people as we speak?"
"W-well, if someone doesn't like it, they simply needn't join. Of course, making life difficult for them is a problem, but for the government office to step into that sort of affair is a bit……"
Jin Cheong-un drank his tea in silence for a while, then nodded.
"I understand what you're saying."
Geum Tae-bang sighed in relief and clutched his chest.
"It's hard for me to say this, but…… might it not be best to just swallow your pride and join?"
"……."
"I can guess that you're no ordinary jianghu man, Vice Master Jin. But if you insist on doing things the jianghu way, you'll find it hard to ever sink roots here in Yichang."
"Will you grace me with your wisdom?"
"As you know, apart from Yiling Castle, Yichang is a very remote countryside."
Where the Yangtze River passed, the docks lined the banks like a proper port, and that area was as bustling as the castle itself. But it was only that stretch. Most of the surrounding region, places like Yinghua Village, was what one would crudely call 'the sticks.'
"In areas like this, custom matters as much as the law. If an outsider acts out of line, people may understand, but they won't look kindly on it."
"So it's clannishness."
"Ah, no, you shouldn't think of it that way. Let's call it…… the elbow bends inward?"
Isn't that exactly clannishness?
Well, he couldn't blame them, really.
Jin Cheong-un was not yet a member of this community.
In truth, how much did the other commoners care about the martial arts association's tyranny? If trouble arose, they'd simply side with the local folk they'd known all their lives.
"It's not like the Black Tiger Gang situation, where you had just cause to act by force. And you do intend to settle down here in this town and keep running your academy, don't you, Vice Master? If so, then perhaps this is the chance to learn how to blend in……"
Geum Tae-bang let his words trail off and stole a glance at Jin Cheong-un.
He seemed lost in thought, staring into empty air.
Silence stretched on. Then—
"Running a business."
Jin Cheong-un murmured the words quietly, as if the phrase kept catching in his mouth no matter how many times he turned it over.
"Why do you ask?"
"They said the same thing. Most of the academies nearby really were running themselves like businesses."
"There's…… nothing wrong with a business, is there?"
"No, there isn't. In that an academy takes payment and provides instruction, a martial academy is indeed a business."
"Then what's the problem?"
"But the fact that its essence lies in teaching — that doesn't change."
Jin Cheong-un's voice sank low.
Earning money through teaching, and selling teaching with money as the goal from the start — these were not the same. The latter wasn't teaching at all.
Teaching is……
"A master is the single greatest influence on a disciple's life. So the work of teaching martial arts — arts that can so easily harm people — must never, ever be taken lightly."
These were people who had come seeking to learn, paying money out of their own pockets.
If you wished to be called 'master,' you owed a responsibility to match.
His own master had done so.
Just as the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy did.
"What could disciples possibly learn under teachers who collude with one another and do nothing but harass others?"
"……!"
"Rather than teaching their disciples well and making them into fine people — what exactly are these teachers teaching, when what matters more is how many students passed the martial examination this year, how much money they made, and how many joined the Alliance?"
In truth, this wasn't entirely what he believed.
Secretly, Jin Cheong-un didn't reject Baek Gun-ak's methods in his head. The man was realistic and efficient.
But if he were a teacher. If he were the master he had once served — the old man would have shaken his head.
I may not manage it perfectly, but I ought to at least imitate him, shouldn't I?
And if he kept imitating, perhaps one day he would truly understand what his master had meant. And the day his own disciples would carry that teaching onward.
"Hoh."
Geum Tae-bang looked at Jin Cheong-un with slightly widened eyes.
So he was this kind of man?
Maybe he'd misjudged him all this time. Thinking about it, the man had only ever disturbed his own peaceful daily life — none of the things he'd actually done had gone against justice, had they? Such an unbending sense of duty. Perhaps this was a true teacher, a rare sight in these degenerate times…….
"Besides, I spent a fortune opening the academy. I barely have enough to eat."
"……."
"I'd sooner give alms to a beggar than pay their membership dues. I'll freeze to death first. Die on the spot before I let them shake me down."
"……Is that not so?"
"Pardon?"
"AH-HEM!"
Geum Tae-bang hastily smoothed over the moment with a cough.
"My apologies for bothering you so early in the morning. It seems you weren't here to ask for my help after all."
"Hold on. What exactly…… do you plan to do?"
The association would certainly make trouble. Even if he ignored them and held out, running the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy would get harder with every passing day.
"Y-you're not planning to do what you did with the Black Tiger Gang, are you……?"
"The Black Tiger Gang? I'm afraid I don't follow."
Ah. Right, that's still ongoing, isn't it.
At that moment, Jin Cheong-un smiled flatly.
"Don't worry. I'll be going about this in a perfectly legal, perfectly moderate way."
Watch me.
I'll show you what the way of a true teacher looks like.