The Three Laws of Cheongun
"In truth, today is the day you can consider yourselves formally entered into the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy and formally taken me as your master in the martial arts."
Until now, he had taught only the fundamentals anyone could learn anywhere.
But from this moment on, that would no longer be the case.
"Therefore, first, I shall teach you the rules of this academy, known as the Three Laws of Cheongun."
Jeong So-so swallowed nervously.
Her master, at this moment, was not scratching his belly in his usual disheveled way, nor yawning with an expression that said everything in the world bored him.
"First: live as your heart directs you."
"……"
"Do not force yourself to live a life someone else imposed on you, and do not be swayed by words that run contrary to your own will. As long as you keep that one rule, it matters not whether you become a righteous man or a villain."
Jeong So-ryong asked, looking slightly taken aback.
"It doesn't matter if we become villains?"
"That's how much I mean it when I say live as you wish. Though if you're going to be a villain anyway, better to be one people call a titan than a common thug rotting in some back alley."
"I— I still won't be a bad person."
Jin Cheong-un already knew there was no chance these siblings would turn out any other way. They were children who had held onto their kindness even through the harshest of times.
"Second: coveting wealth is fine, but do not become a petty thief who steals what belongs to others."
"You're not telling us not to covet wealth?"
"What crime has money ever committed? If you want to earn it, then earn it."
Jeong So-so was secretly flustered.
Isn't a master supposed to tell you to live honestly and honorably?
But Jin Cheong-un didn't so much as mention such glittering platitudes. Instead, he tossed the words out casually, as if to say, do as you please.
"And finally."
Jin Cheong-un paused for a moment and looked at his disciples.
"Never forget what you learn here."
"……"
"Perhaps someday the world of martial arts will feel too narrow for you, and you will leave this place, or go to serve another master. But even then, I hope you will not forget the time you spent at the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy."
"Leave? What are you talking about?"
"That will never, ever happen, Master!"
Seeing his disciples cry out in unison, Jin Cheong-un smiled faintly.
These children did not yet know.
That life is like a cartwheel tumbling down a slope, rolling and stopping as it pleases, heedless of anyone's will.
That was why he carved these words into them now.
So that someday, when their lives went careening down a steep hill beyond their control, these words might become a ledge to catch them, or a side path to escape by.
"Do you all swear to keep the Three Laws of Cheongun in your hearts?"
"Yes. We will keep them in our hearts."
"We swear to follow them without fail."
Jin Cheong-un nodded.
"Good. Then now, I shall teach you the true martial arts of the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy."
The Three Laws of Cheongun would remain the same, but the martial arts Jin Cheong-un intended to teach would be something apart from what the academy had known before.
For he meant to unbind everything he had experienced in the Jianghu, everything he had gained, refined, and created with his own two hands.
Hands clasped behind his back, Jin Cheong-un asked his disciples a question.
"First, a question. Why is the martial arts called mugong—martial achievement?"
Jeong So-so hesitated.
"Well, um……"
Because it's martial arts? She was stalling, sensing that was not an acceptable answer, when something shot up beside her. It was Jeong So-ryong's hand.
"Is it not because, as you told us before, it brings fighting to an end?"
"You remembered. But that concerns the essence of mu, the martial. I'm asking about something a little simpler."
"……"
"People commonly say musul, martial technique, or more elegantly muye, martial art, or even mudo, martial way, as monks and Taoists do. So why use gong—achievement? Has it never made you wonder?"
Jeong So-so found it rather unexpected.
This was the first time Jin Cheong-un had ever patiently explained the meaning or theory behind words like this.
Did that mean it was important enough to warrant it?
"Gong means things gained through time and effort. So does that apply to martial achievement as well?"
Jin Cheong-un nodded, looking thoroughly satisfied.
"Correct. That's why internal cultivation is called the study of the inner art, and external conditioning the study of the outer art."
Jin Cheong-un clicked his tongue.
"These days plenty of brats swing their limbs around flinging internal energy about without understanding any of it, and think that's martial arts. Tsk tsk. Ignorant nonsense."
When people say study, they usually think only of learning letters or skills.
But that was never what study truly meant.
Just as water dripping along a eave hollows deep into the stone below, just as a foolish old man once moved a mountain with nothing but utmost devotion—
Beyond mere effort, every act of pouring yourself completely into a thing with Ultimate sincerity and passion.
That is what it means to devote oneself, and to devote oneself to the martial—
"That is why it is called martial achievement."
Like the masters of the Martial Arts Alliance, who saw the martial as nothing more than a tool for their ends, one was not truly teaching it.
Much as he himself had done back in his days with the Martial Alliance.
"Now then—what is it that martial artists devote themselves so painstakingly to building?"
"Qi…… is it?"
"Yes. Qi—the foundation of all creation, of every thing under heaven."
Jin Cheong-un raised one hand.
Tsssss—!
A faint white light of refined qi bloomed at his fingertips. The siblings gasped in awe at the same moment.
"Many people mistake martial power for internal energy alone, but in truth it refers to the sum of all the strength you accumulate through such training."
Pah!
When Jin Cheong-un clenched his fist, the light flared once and then died out.
"The external conditioning you've done these past few months, So-so, was also devotion—pouring effort into tempering your body, your muscles and bones."
"Ah!"
At that, Jeong So-ryong asked a question.
"Then could anyone build external conditioning just by exercising?"
"Hardly. It's only possible if you consistently stimulate the meridian channels to loosen the body and invigorate the blood, and draw in the qi of nature through proper breathing."
Jeong So-so's eyes went wide.
So he wasn't just torturing me for fun?
She remembered how he kept poking and prodding her to breathe properly, how he twisted and pulled her body this way and that every single day while she was dying of muscle soreness.
Just then, Jin Cheong-un's eyes narrowed.
"So-so. What are you thinking about?"
Jeong So-so jolted in alarm.
"N—nothing! I always believed in you!"
"Hm? Believed in what, exactly?"
"……In you, Master?"
"……"
A brief silence.
Jeong So-so eventually looked away.
"Never mind. Anyway, the reason martial artists can smash through iron and recover from blade wounds in no time is all thanks to external conditioning."
She glanced down at her own palm and murmured.
"Ah. So all the changes I've been going through……"
By now she could lift a massive boulder without strain, and jumping in place she could leap as high as her own height.
Jin Cheong-un nodded.
"Yes. You've forged your vessel."
"My vessel……"
"A person's body, energy, and spirit are very pure at birth, but as they age, impurities accumulate—just as a well-worn vessel gathers grime over the years. That's why those who enter the martial arts late in life rarely achieve greatness."
Jeong So-so froze in horror.
"But then isn't it already too late for me? I'm eighteen!"
"Too late doesn't cover it. At most other places, they wouldn't take you as a disciple at all."
"Wh— then……!"
Disappointment filled Jeong So-so's face to the brim. Her emotions really did show on her face, every last one of them.
"Fortunately, the external conditioning you picked up, even if only superficially, helped. And more than anything…… tsk tsk."
"……?"
Why the sudden tongue-clicking?
And why while looking at her with such pity?
"I suppose it's because you've lived so poorly. Working labor all the time wore your body down, and you never got to eat much meat or rich food, so you haven't built up much impurity at all. Tsk tsk. Just how badly have you been eating?"
Jeong So-so's expression went blank.
Am I supposed to be happy about this or not?
"That's enough of the long lecture."
Jin Cheong-un looked at the two of them.
"From now on, I will teach you an internal cultivation method for accumulating qi in the body, and the martial techniques for wielding that energy to command your body. Both of you—sit cross-legged."
"Yes, Master."
"Ah—yes!"
Jin Cheong-un's eyes gleamed.
"Begin your breathing exercises as you've been taught. Tongue against the roof of the mouth, breath deep and long…… Good."
Before long, only the sound of breathing filled the training grounds.
"Whooo, haaa……"
"Hoo, huu."
Jin Cheong-un nodded with a satisfied face.
"Listen while you keep breathing."
Jeong So-so and Jeong So-ryong opened their ears, focusing on their breath.
"The reason I have you sit cross-legged is a principle called Five Points Facing Heaven. It is the posture best suited for receiving external qi and moving the energy within your body."
"Whooo. Haaa."
"The reason is this: the meridian channels most receptive to qi—the palms, the soles of the feet, the chest, the brow, the crown of the head—are all exposed outward, while the body is gathered into a single unified form. Furthermore……"
Jin Cheong-un's voice continued on.
Did those children know?
That these teachings were things even venerable great sects passed down only to their direct disciples, guarding them against leakage—yet almost never explained so simply and clearly as he did now?
Most martial artists practiced them without ever knowing the precise reasons. Secrets within secrets—and he delivered them to his disciples as calmly as a morning lesson.
"By now you should be feeling stimulation in certain parts of your body. Those parts are the meridian channels, and the totality of the channels is called the qi points."
Qi flowing through holes—hence, qi points.
And within the qi points, there are paths.
"Within our bodies are the Twelve Meridians, channels through which qi flows. They are intimately connected to the five organs and six viscera, governing the flow of the body."
"The Eight Extraordinary Meridians are regarded as the most crucial of all channels when building internal energy and learning the martial arts. Consider them the pathways through which your innate qi, the primal energy you were born with, flows."
"From now on, I will guide the qi for you. Recite the formulae and move the qi in order—you must not stop."
The two children answered only with small nods, voices swallowed by concentration.
Thump!
Jin Cheong-un sat behind his two disciples and placed his hands on their lower backs.
A short while later.
Tsssssssss—!
The siblings felt a cool stream of water flowing through the inside of their bodies.
They felt it passing through gates and channels, and they felt a warmth and coolness they had never known in their lives.
Ah, ah.
This is……
Before they knew it, they had sunk completely into that feeling.
Only when the sun was rising did Jin Cheong-un finally withdraw his hands and wipe the sweat from his brow.
"This cultivation method is called the Cheongun Heart Method. It is the foundational art you must master."
It was, admittedly, a common enough name—there were probably dozens of techniques across the world bearing it.
But its contents were anything but ordinary.
For a mere foundational art, Jin Cheong-un had built it upon the insights of an entire lifetime of training and experience.
He had sought help from the countless peerless masters whose reach brushed him even within the Alliance to lay down its framework.
And he had dismantled and reassembled the innumerable secret manuals he had studied and encountered, scattering them over it like fertilizer.
That was the method that had bloomed from it.
For all that it was a foundation, it was no common martial art—it was a heart method that could rightly be called a supreme secret art.
However.
True profundity has ever come hand in hand with difficulty……
"From this day forward, you must never allow that breathing and that flow of qi to break. Not only during training—when you go to the privy, when you eat, even when you sleep."
Jeong So-so and Jeong So-ryong secretly tilted their heads.
Fine, whenever they were awake—but how were they supposed to maintain it while asleep, when they had no consciousness at all?
"Internal energy includes not only your innate qi but the energy drawn in from outside. If you take the trouble to forge your vessel and fill it with energy, and then just leave it sitting there—what do you suppose happens?"
Well, it would move about as it pleased, or having pooled together, wouldn't it rot?
"Exactly. Zhuohuroma—qi deviation—will come for you."
Wait. Excuse me?
"You're probably wondering what to do if your breathing tangles while you sleep, or your energy stagnates."
The siblings relaxed. Of course—when had their master ever taught anything without a method? There had to be a solution.
"Then don't sleep."
"……!!"
"……!?"
"Ah-ah, your breathing's tangling. Focus, now. If qi deviation takes you, you'll cough up black blood and head straight off to see Big Brother in the afterlife. What a lovely family reunion after all these years, hm?"
"……!"
"Just trust me. Master this properly, and you'll become strong on a completely different level from those pushovers in the Martial Arts Alliance. Don't worry—just do it. Where there's utmost devotion, nothing is impossible!"
In that instant, Jeong So-so and Jeong So-ryong made a silent vow.
To withdraw their unconditional trust in their master, and to distrust him at least occasionally!
Breathing! Keep the breathing going!
I— I can't die at this age!!
Meanwhile, Jin Cheong-un tilted his head as he watched his disciples throw themselves into their training with desperate fervor.
Did I lay it on a bit too thick?
But he quickly shook his head.
Well, a healthy dose of fear wouldn't hurt them.
Seriously—they'd only just entered the foundation stage. A tangled breath or two wasn't going to send them into qi deviation.
They'll train with their lives on the line out of that fear, so their progress will be fast. Ah, I truly do have a talent for teaching.
Jin Cheong-un let out a hearty laugh and gazed fondly at his disciples.