He Lost the Match, Not the Fight
Gulp.
Lee Jeong-gwang swallowed dryly.
His head was foggy and his body drained of strength, as though he had only just drifted off to sleep and woken again.
What……
Then a sharp sting flared in his lower abdomen, and his gaze drifted slowly downward. There stood Jeong So-so, thrusting the broken halves of her wooden sword at him, the jagged splinter hovering a hair's breadth from piercing his skin.
"……!"
His senses snapped back all too late. As Lee Jeong-gwang stumbled backward on pure reflex, her low voice burrowed into his ear.
"……I did it."
Jeong So-so grinned.
A moment later, her body sagged forward, spent.
Thud!
The match was decided.
And in that same instant, a thunderous cry erupted across the arena.
"Th-the winner of this Imuhoe-u is Lee Jeong-gwang of White Horse Academy!"
A brief silence fell. Then, slowly, cheers began to seep out from the stands.
"Uh……"
"W-waaaaah!"
At first it was a limp, ragged noise, like a line of cash counting out one bill at a time — but it swelled, quickly, into a full-throated roar.
The referee, the martial instructor of White Horse Academy itself, came sprinting over to shower him with praise.
"Magnificent, Gwang! I knew you could do it!"
But Lee Jeong-gwang only murmured in a daze.
"……Did I actually win?"
"You rascal! I'm telling you, you did!"
"No, but—"
Lee Jeong-gwang felt his palms go damp with sweat.
His victory had been unassailable. The gap between them was wide enough that he could have won ten matches out of ten, and even at the very end, he had only faltered for a moment because her wooden sword had snapped.
That was what everyone would say.
But he could not say it. Because no one knew better than he did — the one who had stood across from Jeong So-so herself.
It wasn't that he had nearly lost because he'd let his guard down when the sword broke.
He had nearly lost because, even with her sword broken, she had refused to give up.
If only……
If she had even a single thread more of internal energy left in her.
If she had trained a little longer in hardening techniques, lightness skill, footwork.
If her stamina or strength had lasted just a bit further.
No — even if her wooden sword had been merely a finger-joint's length longer……
I would have lost.
Of course, this had been a formal match, so the moment her sword broke, his victory was sealed. Even had he conceded a follow-up strike, an exhausted Jeong So-so could never have swung it.
And yet.
And yet why did he feel this way?
Because I can't do that.
Not just in this match — in his entire life, he had never wanted something that desperately.
He had won the match, certainly. But he had not truly won. As a person, as a martial artist, he had lost.
"Hmmm. Fortunately it seems you were merely exhausted. Come, let us get you to the physician."
"No. I have to go to the inn right now."
"In that state? Impossible!"
Lee Jeong-gwang could only stare, dumbstruck, at the sight of her hauling herself unsteadily to her feet, leaning on the healer's arm.
"Your father will be so proud of you. Heh heh! Does it not feel real yet? Cheer up, boy!"
"……"
"Winning the Imuhoe-u means you're now a recognized rising star of Yichang!"
"……"
"What are you doing? Go pay your respects to our honored guests! Heh heh!"
In that moment, ignoring the referee chattering at his side, Lee Jeong-gwang bolted straight for Jeong So-so.
"Wait!"
Jeong So-so, descending from the stage with the healer's support, froze and turned.
"What?"
His breath catching in his throat, Lee Jeong-gwang's lips trembled before the question finally spilled out.
"Was it — was it because of the bet between the Academy Masters? You'd already secured that win, hadn't you? Then why — no, how could you go that far……"
Jeong So-so simply watched him stumble over his words. Then she spoke, slowly.
"I just wanted to."
"……?"
"I trained so hard for this. I didn't want to phone it in."
As the words left her mouth, Jeong So-so finally understood her own heart — why she had dragged herself through such brutal training, why she had refused to quit and faced it all so seriously.
Because it had been fun.
The moment of showing what her effort had built was so joyful, so precious, so dear to her…… that she hadn't wanted to slack for even a single breath.
She gave a soft smile.
"Isn't it the same for you?"
"……!"
Lee Jeong-gwang stared at her, mouth hanging open, utterly dumbfounded.
Jeong So-so turned away with a scoff, muttering under her breath.
"……Tch. Come to think of it, is he teasing me after winning? Those people really are insufferable to the very end."
Never mind that she herself had done the very same thing to opponents once — that memory had been thoroughly scrubbed from her mind. Without even realizing it, she had become a proper, upstanding instructor of the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy.
Then it happened.
"……No. I wasn't."
"……?"
"I wasn't like you. I'm certain I used to be, once…… but not anymore."
Lee Jeong-gwang clenched his fist, his face hollow. He was unmistakably the victor, yet he wore the expression of a man everyone could see had been defeated.
His face flushed red as he spoke.
"I apologize. No — I truly am sorry. For looking down on you, and for the attitude I showed."
Then he assumed a firm fist-and-palm salute.
"Might I challenge you again someday?"
Jeong So-so stared at him evenly. Then her brow abruptly creased.
"Nope."
"What?"
"What kind of talk is that? I'm the one who lost, so if anyone gets to demand a rematch, it's me."
"Ah — ah, of course!"
Lee Jeong-gwang nodded hurriedly.
Jeong So-so smirked.
"Next time, I'll win for sure. Because I'm going to train even harder."
"And until then, I'll train with all my heart, just as you have."
Suddenly, Jeong So-so pushed the healer's hand away and stood on her own, swaying slightly.
With a slow, deliberate motion, she opened her left hand, pressed it against her right fist, and extended them both.
"It was a fine match. Thank you for your consideration."
Startled, Lee Jeong-gwang bowed his head deeply.
"I have…… learned much."
For the first time, Lee Jeong-gwang felt he truly understood the meaning of the words he had spoken all his life out of mere habit.
Step, step.
As Jeong So-so made her way down from the arena, she swallowed a dry gulp.
Did I do the fist-and-palm salute right? I did, right?
She had never been taught how Jianghu warriors greeted one another, and she had panicked in the moment. Just in case, she had copied his gesture exactly — surely that was fine?
And seriously, why doesn't Master ever teach me things like this?!
Well, anyway……
Jeong So-so pressed her lips shut and looked around at the bustling surroundings.
The victor is cheered, and the defeated simply withdraw. That is all.
It's over.
The journey of this past year. All the hours of effort she had poured in.
When the Imuhoe-u ended, a feast was held.
Liquor flowed and food was laid out, and spectators and villagers from all over came to join the uproar. As everyone raised their cups in praise of Baek Gun-ak's generous hospitality —
— in a deserted training ground far from the revelry, Baek Gun-ak's roar was echoing into the night.
"Sect Lord Seo! No — Seo Cheol-yong, you wretch! What in the world have you done?!"
"What? 'You wretch'? Watch your tongue! I pay you the courtesy of calling you Vice Master, and you decide I really am beneath you?"
"You will hold your tongue!"
BOOM!
Baek Gun-ak raised his voice and slammed his foot into the ground, and a savage wave of qi burst outward.
"……!"
Seo Cheol-yong flinched at the murderous pressure, his shoulders hunching of their own accord.
He had clawed his way up from ronin stock and seen his share of hardship, but measured against a true master like Baek Gun-ak, his skill fell hopelessly short.
Baek Gun-ak spoke in a low growl.
"Do you take me for a blind fool? I warned you, and still…… you dared commit such a vile, contemptible act — in my academy!"
At those words, the cowering Seo Cheol-yong slowly straightened his back.
"……Ha. So that's what this is about."
Baek Gun-ak's eyes twitched.
"Should you not be thanking me instead? Thanks to me, you narrowly escaped the worst possible outcome."
"What did you say?"
Seo Cheol-yong brushed the hem of his long robe as he spoke.
"And what has come of the Vice Master's complacent pride, hmm? Everything I did, I did for the Academy."
"……"
"Look at the facts. They drank the Baekmohongcho and still won their semifinal matches…… Who can say how the finals might have turned out if the poison hadn't touched them?"
Seo Cheol-yong slid between formal speech and casual as it suited him. Watching him, Baek Gun-ak's expression hardened bit by bit.
"It isn't as though I poisoned them with something vile — they drank a precious medicinal herb. What exactly is the problem? Vice Master, instead of wasting time interrogating me, shouldn't you be composing your excuses for the Academy Masters?"
Baek Gun-ak regarded Seo Cheol-yong in silence.
At last, a voice like frost slipped from his lips.
"Had I known you were this great a fool, I would never have taken you in."
"……What?"
Baek Gun-ak fixed him with eyes like blocks of ice.
"I hear one of Jin Cheong-un's disciples suffers from Nine Yin Severed Meridians."
"……What? Severed Meridians?"
"His qi and blood are fragile as it is, and he is meant to be under strict care — and your poison triggered his symptoms. Are you aware that the reason he has been missing all these hours is because they are suppressing it at the inn as we speak?"
"N-no, what does that even……"
Seo Cheol-yong's face went rigid. But he recovered quickly, clearing his throat and mustering an air of brazen innocence.
"So? What of it?"
"……"
"There's no proof that was because of the Baekmohongcho. No trace remains, and there's nothing to be done about it anyway, so……"
"Nothing to be done?"
Baek Gun-ak glared at Seo Cheol-yong as one might regard an insect.
"You committed such an act in my White Horse Academy, and there is nothing to be done?"
"Wh-why are you like this?"
"Yes. I'll grant that misjudging a man was my own failing. But watching you screech away, not even realizing you've poked a hornet's nest…… Ha! I cannot even laugh."
The searing heat of Baek Gun-ak's fury was cooling, rapidly, into something cold and still. And it was precisely then that Seo Cheol-yong, who had remained defiant throughout, felt genuine fear crawl up his spine.
"Hornet's nest? You mean Jin Cheong-un? He's just…… a green pup with decent martial arts, isn't he?"
"A green pup. Heh heh. A green pup."
Baek Gun-ak's eyes flashed.
"Then I suppose the vicious remnants of the Black Tiger Gang tremble and grovel before — what was it — a mere green pup?"
"What……?"
"According to Chief Bailiff Geum Tae-bang, that green pup was deeply involved in the annihilation of the Black Tiger Gang. My, what a remarkable pup indeed. Wouldn't you say?"
"Th-that's — what are you even saying right now……"
"And furthermore — that green pup!"
Baek Gun-ak's voice cracked out like thunder.
"Are you aware he wields connections powerful enough to make the Martial Alliance's Branch Chief watch his step?"
"……!"
"Pressure the Branch Chief? Fine — yes, I too could manage that with connections of my own. But this man sits above the Branch Chief! At the very least, he has ties to someone of Sect Lord rank in the provincial capital, or higher!"
"Th-then why are you only telling me this now……!"
"HAHAHA!"
Baek Gun-ak burst out laughing.
"Did you think running your mouth all over the village would never bring trouble down on us? Do you imagine I wove this entire scheme, all these roundabout maneuvers, for nothing?"
Seo Cheol-yong's eyes went glassy. He scrambled to speak.
"Th-there's no evidence. No one knows it was me, so……"
"And why does no one know?"
"……?"
"Because I am here."
Seo Cheol-yong's eyes went wide as saucers.
Confused, stammering wildly, he dropped to his knees with a heavy thud against the floor.
"F-forgive me, Vice Master!"
"……"
"I — I must have lost my senses for a moment! Everything I did was for the Academy, so please, just once! Grant me just one more chance!"
Watching Seo Cheol-yong grovel flat against the ground only stoked Baek Gun-ak's anger further.
"You should be begging him for that. Not me."
A long breath flowed out from Jin Cheong-un's lips.
"Haaaah……"
Hoooooong.
A thin mist of vapor laced the exhaled breath. He opened his eyes slowly.
The room had gone dark at some point without his noticing. At his knees, Jeong So-ryong lay fast asleep from sheer exhaustion, letting out soft little snuffling breaths.
……So life still has surprises like this in store.
The string of unforeseen events had left him simply staring blankly. He raised a hand and brushed it slowly down over his lower abdomen.
Wuuung!
He could feel it — his dantian had widened. The internal energy that should have shattered the floor performing something akin to the Hair-Growing Bone-Cleansing Rite had also risen, ever so slightly, in strength.
Hm.
Jin Cheong-un's expression soured.
Could it be that what I learned was actually a demonic art?
Absorbing tainted qi and converting it into internal energy — from any outside observer, wasn't that the very definition of an energy-absorption art? A vision suddenly flickered through his mind of the Alliance Leader marching in with an army bellowing, 'You've practiced a demonic art — this is treachery! Destroy the master after using him!'
Of course, it was pure fantasy. He no longer belonged to the Alliance at all, and frankly, the energy was far too gentle and well-mannered to be called demonic.
Then what is it?
Jin Cheong-un focused on the unfamiliar energy mingled within his true qi.
Normally, when true qi of differing natures accumulated in one body, they collided — that was the natural order of things. Hadn't that very thing happened with the Geoncheon qi and the Myeongwang Art?
Yet somehow, by whatever twist of fortune, energies that differed in nature down to their very essence had blended as though they had been one from the very beginning.
No — it went beyond mere blending. Their opposing structures interlocked with perfect precision, generating a synergy that lifted each other higher.
At this point, honestly, debating what to call it was pointless.
This is the new true qi of Palhwangmu. Something altogether different from the Geoncheon qi.
Jin Cheong-un's eyes deepened.