The Old Man's Promise
Over a steaming cup of tea, Jin Cheong-un sat facing an old man with a head of white hair.
Baek Un-seo, Master of White Horse Academy.
His manner was so gentle and warm that it was hard to believe he was truly Baek Gun-ak's father.
"I don't know if the tea suits your taste."
"I don't know much about tea myself, but the fragrance is wonderful."
"Glad to hear it. I'll have some set aside to send out with you, so take it along."
"Thank you."
Jin Cheong-un took another sip of tea and set down his cup. He gazed at it for a moment on the table before speaking.
Had the Jeong siblings witnessed this scene, they might well have been stunned — the expression on his face now was far more solemn than his usual deadpan.
"I hear you had a connection with my late master."
The reason Jin Cheong-un had come without a second thought at Baek Un-seo's summons was precisely that the guide had said those words to him.
Baek Un-seo nodded slowly.
"We kept each other company. There was an age gap between us, but I considered him a friend."
"A friend, you say."
"We would share tea like this, now and then, and play a game or two of baduk. I won slightly more often, I believe."
Baek Un-seo smiled playfully.
"Heh heh. In truth, your master was several moves above me — but if I let the game run long, I feared his disciples would cause some mischief, so it always ended in a draw. I took advantage of that to win quite a few times, heh heh. *Ahem, ahem!* Mmm!"
Baek Un-seo coughed for a while.
Jin Cheong-un half-rose from his seat, but the old man waved him off as if it were nothing and moistened his throat with tea.
"Are you unwell?"
"Just the years catching up, heh."
Setting down his cup, he looked at Jin Cheong-un with serene eyes.
"I worried some troublesome fellow had taken over Cheongun Hall... but seeing you in person puts my mind at ease."
Human decency radiated from every word. The corners of his smiling eyes and mouth were creased deep with wrinkles.
"You really are that man's disciple, it seems."
Jin Cheong-un gave a hollow laugh.
"And what exactly did you see to draw that conclusion?"
"However old I've grown, I was still a martial artist. What do you think I saw?"
They were the cloudy eyes peculiar to the elderly, yet held a peculiar depth. Perhaps, in his youth, he had been a martial artist who attained quite a high realm.
"You seem to have carried on his progression. Am I seeing things correctly?"
"Every disciple of Cheongun Hall has carried on Master's progression."
Martial arts were not everything. At least, that was what his master would have said.
"An eloquent answer. Yes, you're right. It's only that your qi feels so different from the man I met some time ago."
"The man you met?"
"A man who went by the name Baek-heon, at the Jeong household."
It was like hearing about the eldest brother who had guarded Cheongun Martial Arts Academy.
Jin Cheong-un's eyes narrowed.
'Does he really know something?'
If he had a connection with Master, surely he might know something about the Eight Emperors Martial Art, Heavenly Turtle Technique, too?
"I once made a pact with that friend. Whether he remembered it, I couldn't say."
"What kind of pact?"
"That we would look after each other's disciples, little by little."
Baek Un-seo let out a warm chuckle.
"He said his disciples would surely return someday, and asked me to leave Yinghua Village be. 'If White Horse Academy competes with them, how are my disciples supposed to make a living?' And I, in turn, begged him — if my own disciples ever crossed paths with Cheongun Hall, to please show them some leniency. Hahaha."
Baek Un-seo roared with laughter.
The chuckle that followed from Jin Cheong-un was tinged with a wistfulness.
"...He doesn't look the type at all, but he was quite the wit, wasn't he."
Baek Un-seo nodded calmly.
"It was a pact made in passing, over drinks — but in my heart, I meant it. That man... he was someone special."
Only then did Jin Cheong-un feel something that had puzzled him falling into place.
"The Martial Arts Academy Association seemed terribly ambitious, but the reason they never reached into Yinghua Village — that was why."
"If only my health had held, I would have blocked the Black Tiger Sect as well. I'm sorry about that."
"No."
Jin Cheong-un shook his head.
A quiet relief settled in his chest. He'd been swindled out of a house and bled dry for academy maintenance fees — if there had already been a rival entrenched in the village on top of that...
'...Chills.'
A deep gratitude and respect bloomed in him for this elder who had carried a promise made over drinks all this time.
"By the way, I hear there's conflict between you and my son. As his father, and as your master's friend, I would like to apologize."
"There's no need."
"But I hear he suffered quite an ordeal."
Hm.
It was the other way around, actually.
He'd heard the man got thoroughly thrashed by the Black Tiger Sect.
"Then allow me to apologize in advance as well."
"For what?"
"I find myself in a position where I'll have to press down on your son's pride a bit."
At that moment, Baek Un-seo burst into hearty laughter.
"Heh heh. Well then, would you scold him on my behalf?"
It was such an unexpected reaction that this time Jin Cheong-un found himself at a loss for words.
Worry showed on Baek Un-seo's face.
"I've spent my life teaching people, yet I couldn't properly discipline my own child. Now that he's left my hands, someone has to bring him to his senses, doesn't he?"
"..."
"Looking at it that way, perhaps you're the one keeping my promise in his stead. Heh."
Baek Un-seo appeared different to Jin Cheong-un now.
Not through the lens of a martial artist, but through the lens of a teacher.
Somehow, he felt he might not reach even the tips of this man's toes.
"Excuse me—"
Jin Cheong-un opened his mouth to bring up the matter he had set aside earlier. It was at that very moment—
"Pardon the intrusion."
A sound came from outside, and someone spoke at the door.
"Master, the physician has arrived."
"Mm. Already, is it."
Baek Un-seo's voice trailed off with regret.
"Would you stop by once more before you go? There are still things I'd like to ask."
"Of course — I was thinking the same. I'll take my leave for today, then."
Jin Cheong-un rose from his seat with a proper bow.
The guide was waiting, but he declined the escort and walked on alone, mulling over their conversation. Then he stopped and turned slowly back to look.
'Master said his disciples would surely return someday?'
How strange.
It sounded like something one would say after meeting someone following the academy's collapse, didn't it?
That was impossible. Baek Un-seo hadn't spoken as if he'd done so either.
Then... had he predicted it?
'Am I being too paranoid?'
Jin Cheong-un shook his head firmly.
He must simply have been speaking of a hypothetical.
Jin Cheong-un gave the annex a strange look, then walked on.
Two days before the tournament, at a meeting of the Association, a man raised his voice.
"Vice Master. This is going too far — allowing Cheongun Hall to compete in the tournament?"
Seo Cheol-yong's tone dripped with alarm.
He was Baek Gun-ak's right hand, the very man who had lunged at Jin Cheong-un at the last meeting only to be dropped in a single strike.
"There's no need to grant him such an opportunity — just stomp him flat until he doesn't dare make a sound. And yet a wager, of all things?"
Baek Gun-ak took a calm sip of tea. Inside, however, he was struggling to suppress a boiling fury.
'Hoo. That ignorant fool, Lord Seo.'
What was he supposed to do about someone with connections to the upper echelons of the Martial Alliance?
Sure, the man had retired to run a rural academy, and he was a former escort warrior — but a connection that made a branch director grovel was highly likely to be someone of Guild Leader rank or above. Nothing intimate, perhaps just a passing acquaintance.
Still. The Martial Alliance was the Martial Alliance.
The man was crazy enough to command even the Black Sects — who knew what might happen if he poked him carelessly?
That was precisely why he had gone to such lengths, using the Association itself, to painstakingly set this trap in a roundabout way.
"As I said, Lord Seo, the wager is merely the pretext. Win or lose, Cheongun Hall will quietly disappear — did I not say so?"
Even if Jin Cheong-un won the bet, he would struggle to survive in this business without the Association's support anyway.
And if he lost, his reputation and standing would plummet beyond repair. Either way, the outcome was the same.
"I've also made arrangements with the Black Tiger Sect; they'll be dealt with together as soon as the tournament ends. So I ask all of you to simply trust this old man Baek and let it pass."
Before anyone else could speak, Baek Gun-ak looked around the room.
"Let us end today's meeting here. Please return and look after the disciples who will compete in the tournament."
"Mm. Yes, understood."
"Come now, let's be off."
Amid the unsettled atmosphere, the association executives rose one by one.
Baek Gun-ak had to stop halfway to the door. Seo Cheol-yong had stayed behind and was staring at him.
"I have something of great importance to discuss."
"..."
Baek Gun-ak narrowed his eyes. Seo Cheol-yong's expression was far from ordinary.
"Speak."
"What if... Cheongun Martial Arts Academy were to win the tournament outright?"
Seo Cheol-yong swallowed dryly.
"If that happened, it would shake the very authority of our Association to its core."
"Are you seriously suggesting that a girl who used to do odd labor will defeat every trainee of this Association?"
Baek Gun-ak finally couldn't hold back and gave a hollow laugh.
"I hear she only began martial arts training at eighteen. Her body and her blood channels would have long since hardened. What is there to worry about?"
"There is such a thing as a 'what if,' sir. Jin Cheong-un... that man is no ordinary fellow."
Baek Gun-ak frowned.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
"If there were a surefire method — what would you do?"
"...?"
Seo Cheol-yong glanced around, then lowered his voice. His eyes gleamed.
"Do you know of something called Baekmohongcho?"
"I do not."
"I learned of it in my vagrant days. It's a type of cordyceps that grows from a worm called baekmo, found only in Yunnan. The people there even brew it into tea..."
"Enough."
Baek Gun-ak raised a hand and cut him off. Brow furrowed deep, he glared at Seo Cheol-yong.
"I trust you are not about to say what I think you are."
Seo Cheol-yong froze for a moment, then pressed on.
"Ha ha! I know what you're thinking, but this merely clears turbid qi and bolsters vitality. It isn't poison — it's medicine. Medicine, I tell you."
"And what exactly do you intend to do with it?"
Seo Cheol-yong's eyes glittered.
"Just as ordinary cordyceps aids lung ailments, Baekmohongcho does the same. But it has a peculiar trait — its effects grow dramatically when one's breathing grows ragged. A veteran martial artist might manage, but for someone who only recently began training, it would throw off their qi control during a match."
"..."
"It's nothing excessive — just that much. And it isn't poison, so there's no worry of side effects..."
That was the moment.
"Lord Seo."
Seo Cheol-yong flinched. Baek Gun-ak was looking at him with eyes colder than ice.
"So what exactly are you proposing to do with it?"
"Mix it into their drinking water, of course—"
"Hold your tongue."
"...!"
"A man is supposed to have a conscience, you wretched fool."
Baek Gun-ak glared at him with eyes full of disgust.
"Do my students — do this Association's disciples — look so pitiful to you that they'd need the help of such a thing?"
"V-Vice Master, it's hardly a crime. Merely a precaution. A pinch in their drinking water and..."
"Silence! What do you take me for?! Even if I stop at nothing else, do I look like a man who would stoop to such despicable treachery?!"
Baek Gun-ak snarled coldly, his face twisted in revulsion.
"I will pretend I never heard today's conversation. I misjudged you, my friend."
*Swoosh!*
He shoved Seo Cheol-yong aside and strode away.
Left standing alone, Seo Cheol-yong ground his teeth and muttered under his breath.
"...Acting righteous now, of all times? A hypocrite stuffed to the brim with pointless pride."
He glowered at Baek Gun-ak's retreating back, lips curling.
"Just you wait. When push comes to shove, you'll be thanking me."
Seo Cheol-yong had not forgotten his beating at Jin Cheong-un's hands.
So if he couldn't touch the man himself, he intended to take his revenge through the man's disciples.
Two days later.
The gates of White Horse Academy swung wide open, and crowds of spectators along with martial artists and students from across Yichang County poured in.
The tournament.
At last, the day had arrived.
"So that's our spot."
"I hope I get matched against you. I'll flatten you."
"If you get matched against me, I'll make you suffer as much as I can. If you even make it to my bracket, that is."
Under the sharp gazes raining down from every direction, Jeong So-so stole a sideways glance.
"Don't we get any snacks or anything?"
Jin Cheong-un was scratching his neck, mid-yawn.
Master, what on earth did you do to earn this much hostility?
'I hate you, Master.'
Jeong So-so giggled, then squeezed her eyes shut.