Like a Natural Disaster
The guest of honor at a banquet couldn't very well be absent from his own celebration.
Which meant that, naturally, Jin Cheong-un was nowhere to be found in the Jin household at the moment.
It was an iron law of nature, older than the hills, that whenever the man of the hour stepped away, the gossip began flowing as surely as water running downhill.
"The moment he has a little spare money, he goes and buys the strangest books! He's up reading all night, so come morning he's nodding off wherever he happens to be sitting!"
"He's still at it, is he? And then he'll insist that some outlandish nonsense straight out of those books is the honest truth?"
"Did he do that even back in the Alliance, sir?"
"He did, I tell you. You've no idea how my stomach churned every single time. Once, there was this—"
"He says things I can't make sense of sometimes too, or jokes that leave me with no idea how I'm supposed to react."
Jeong So-so was launching fireworks of complaint as if the earlier awkwardness had never existed, and Jeong So-ryong, who had been a touch reserved at first, had warmed up and was chattering away with the best of them.
"Heh heh. Your master can be a bit indifferent, it's true. You two must have had a hard time of it."
"Yes, sometimes it's so frustrating, and— hm."
Jeong So-so, mid-gossip, flinched all at once.
Then she murmured in a voice that seemed to be crawling into a hole:
"N-not that I dislike my master, of course. He's our benefactor, and he teaches us and everything…"
"Sis, what's gotten into you all of a sudden?"
"Wh-what do you mean?"
Yeo Woon-baek couldn't hold it in any longer and burst into a hearty laugh. Her belated guilt toward her own master was written plain as day across her face.
How refreshingly honest. Not at all like children these days.
Had he ever married, these were exactly the kind of grandchildren he might have had. Wearing a contented smile, Yeo Woon-baek took a quiet sip of his tea, and the late-stage masters he'd known in the Alliance drifted through his mind — young men raised to be pillars of the Jianghu, mature beyond their years in more ways than one.
These two had something those prodigies lacked: a bright, unforced vitality. Like wildflowers in full bloom on a hillside, they were a joy to look at.
"Come to think of it, I seem to be the only one doing all the asking. Well then — is there nothing you're curious about regarding me?"
Genuinely entertained and rather taken with the children, Yeo Woon-baek opened the door lightly. And at his words, the siblings' eyes lit up like lanterns.
"Might we ask you about our master, by any chance?"
Jeong So-so pounced on the opening with the face of someone who'd been waiting for exactly this.
"Heh heh heh. Haven't you been doing that very thing since the moment we sat down?"
"No, I mean—"
Jeong So-so spoke as she gently rubbed the beads of condensation on the surface of her teacup with one finger.
"Alliance Leader, you've known our master for a very long time, haven't you?"
"The first time I met him, he was younger than you are now — so yes, I've known him quite a while."
"What sort of person is he, in your eyes?"
Understanding the true weight of the question, Yeo Woon-baek's expression grew a touch more serious.
"And why is it you wish to know?"
"Honestly… sometimes he simply doesn't make sense to us."
Why was he so indifferent to everything? What accounted for that strange heaviness that flickered across him from time to time?
They knew Jin Cheong-un — and at the same time, they knew nothing about him at all.
"I'm not asking about his past. It would be a lie to say I'm not curious, but… whatever it turns out to be, he'll still be our master either way."
"……"
"I'd just like to understand him a little better. Our master."
Yeo Woon-baek closed his eyes and fell into thought for a long moment.
Tap.
Setting down his teacup, he spoke at last.
"Do you children have dreams?"
"Yes, we do."
"Yes."
The siblings' eyes sparkled. Yeo Woon-baek nodded.
"Just so. Like everyone else, your master must have gone through that season of life too."
A child dreams. A young man accumulates the things that matter. An adult lives to protect them. True, people sometimes give up along the way, sometimes bend and settle — and even so, they climb one step at a time until a boy becomes a man. That is what we call growing up.
But.
"If you ask me what sort of man your master is… I'd have to say he is someone who lost all of those things at once."
"……!"
Jin Cheong-un was a man who had climbed the stairs of maturity with nothing left in his hands, who had become an adult almost by accident.
Yet a road still lay open before him, and so he had become Captain of the Black Dragon Unit. But when even that road reached its end, nothing whatsoever remained.
Someone who lost his dream…?
Jeong So-so's eyes trembled. Instinctively, she understood this was not about wanting to become something when you grew up.
It was precisely then, in the middle of that heavy silence, that Yeo Woon-baek abruptly let out a laugh.
"So when that fellow suddenly announced he was retiring to open a martial arts academy, you can imagine how hard I laughed. Heh heh heh!"
"…What?"
"I was worried he'd open the place only to spend his days drinking and gambling. But I came here myself and saw that he truly means it — he's caring for it with everything he has."
Um, about that. He does still drink. Quite a lot, actually.
And as for the gambling…
"What is it?"
"N-nothing."
Yeo Woon-baek said, in a voice soft as worn silk:
"I understand what's troubling you, but there's no need to think so deeply about it."
"Why is that?"
"What good does it do to try and understand something that can't be understood?"
"…What?"
At that moment, he wore the expression of a man who had achieved enlightenment.
"Understand what can be understood. Where in the world does your master operate within the bounds of common sense?"
"……"
"Just accept it. Think of him as a kind of natural disaster. Let it go, give up on figuring him out, and everything gets easier."
Wow.
That actually makes perfect sense.
So my master's way of thinking really does exist just outside the realm of ordinary people.
"There's no need to strain yourself grasping at what can't be known."
"……"
"A man too lazy for anything decides to raise a single disciple and raises all that fuss, invites acquaintances he swore he'd never contact again, and declares he'll turn the girl into the finest martial artist under heaven."
By the Black Asura. By the Sword Ghost. By the Blue-Eyed Yama.
Who on earth would believe it if they were told? He hadn't believed it himself.
"Whatever's going on in that fellow's head, even the things he does against his own inclinations are probably sincere. So just let it be."
"……"
"……"
Jeong So-so and Jeong So-ryong pressed their lips together and nodded, solemn and serious. Watching the two siblings nod so earnestly, a smile rose to Yeo Woon-baek's face of its own accord.
He's taken good disciples. And it seems he's become a good master himself.
He hadn't heard the details of their circumstances, but he could guess at the Jeong siblings' history well enough. They must have known hard, early years — yet there wasn't a shadow on either child's face. Intentionally or not, Jin Cheong-un had gathered up their wounds and held them gently.
Heh. That fellow.
He was certainly not the type to know how to do such things, and yet somehow he'd managed to become a teacher. Or perhaps it was the reverse. Nobody is born a master. It is the disciple who, at last, makes a man into one.
A martial arts academy, is it. Not a bad thing at all.
Yeo Woon-baek's face took on a peculiar expression. A rather clever idea had just occurred to him.
Yeo Woon-baek left the house before dawn.
Though the sky was still black, the sounds of children training drifted from behind the Jin household. They had worked since yesterday morning and stayed up late trading stories — surely exhausted — yet apparently not a single one of them had skipped their morning practice.
"I can hardly interrupt their training. I'll withdraw quietly."
"Won't the children be disappointed, sir?"
"A true master of the Jianghu is supposed to vanish without a trace. That's half the mystery and half the style of it."
"……"
Ha Woon-seong shot Yeo Woon-baek a single, faintly disrespectful glance.
Soon they arrived at the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy.
Beyond the stragglers still sprawled in drunken sleep, they found Jin Cheong-un preparing the day's banquet with a face that looked ready to die of tedium.
"…You're leaving already?"
"I am. I've left your opening gift in your room — open it later."
"May I ask what it is?"
"An elixir, and a set of silver needles."
Jin Cheong-un was genuinely impressed.
"Truly worthy of the Alliance Leader."
Tch. What a shameless creature.
Yeo Woon-baek tipped his chin ever so slightly.
"Walk with me a moment."
"Of course."
Taking the hint, Ha Woon-seong did not follow, remaining behind at the academy.
Jin Cheong-un and Yeo Woon-baek walked the mountain path behind the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy, wrapped in the thick morning fog.
"Still sleeping poorly?"
"I manage. Well, there's plenty of time for naps."
"Perhaps I should retire myself."
Old habits of vigilance were ground so deep into his bones that broken sleep was simply daily life — and in the cracks of it, restless thoughts crept in, leaving him staring at the ceiling until morning. In those hours there was nothing to do but train. That was how Yeo Woon-baek had grown strong. Jin Cheong-un was no different.
"They're good children."
"What did you think?"
"Disciples more than worthy of you."
"……"
As Jin Cheong-un's face curdled, Yeo Woon-baek laughed.
"Though this So-ryong boy has apparently already reached the Small Success Circle. Isn't that too fast?"
"He'll be fine. He did it himself."
"Himself?"
"I only taught him the foundations of the qi-gathering and qi-circulation methods, and he went and completed the Twelve Meridian Cycle on his own."
"Ah. I see."
The boy's a prodigy of the highest order.
If that's true, he was born with the makings of a Grand Master.
"And So-so?"
"Hmm. Her raw talent is nothing remarkable."
"That's a bit harsh."
"But her intuition is excellent. You taught her the Taiqing Heart Sutra, I take it?"
"Yes."
It was the name of the secret manual he had taught her early on, so that she might one day hold her own in scholarly discourse. The Taiqing Heart Sutra was less a martial art than a discipline of cultivation — the method by which certain old Daoist practitioners, now lost to history, had trained their upper dantian. A secret text stored not particularly deep within the Martial Arts Alliance's archives.
"And you've drilled her external arts to an almost absurd degree… You've taught in a style entirely out of step with the fashion of the times."
"I simply went the traditional route."
"Not even the great sects teach that way anymore, you fool."
Balanced instruction in internal and external arts alongside the study of the mind — that, too, was a relic of the past. The era had turned, and with it the fashion: even the prestigious clans now taught for efficiency, for results. And still Jin Cheong-un stubbornly, almost foolishly, insisted on the fundamentals. By the traditional methods even those hidebound great clans had abandoned.
"Strictly speaking, it's orthodox among orthodox — the truest of the true. But these children knew nothing whatsoever of martial arts to begin with. Will they really keep up? Mishandled, they might break partway through."
"Wouldn't it be the opposite?"
"Opposite?"
"They'll keep up precisely because they don't know anything. As far as they're concerned, what I teach is simply the correct way."
Yeo Woon-baek's eyes widened slightly, and then he let out an awkward half-laugh.
"You're serious about this, aren't you?"
Jin Cheong-un smiled thinly.
"It's secretly rather fun. Raising children."
"You raised plenty of them back in the Alliance. What's different now?"
"Those were subordinates. These are disciples. They're the ones who'll see me through my old age — of course I'll put effort into raising them properly."
"……"
Still, I wonder how those men are doing.
I left without a word. I hope they haven't been stewing over it.
Tap.
Then Yeo Woon-baek stopped walking and turned his head. It was a spot overlooking the whole of Yinghua Village.
"Now. Tell me."
It came from nowhere. But Jin Cheong-un nodded calmly.
"My martial arts have hit a wall."
"Mm."
"It feels as though something has slipped out of alignment. I have everything I need, yet I've stalled."
The foundation was laid, his internal energy ample, his external arts rebuilding steadily. His insights were beyond question — and yet he could not for the life of him understand why a wall had appeared.
"No one has ever recovered their martial arts the way you did, so I suppose you had nothing to reference."
"Do you happen to know the reason?"
"Shall I tell you?"
"…What?"
Just like that? I haven't even explained anything, and you already know?
Yeo Woon-baek gave a dry chuckle.
"You haven't changed a bit, have you."
"What do you mean by that?"
Yeo Woon-baek's voice dropped lower, deeper.
"I heard how you dealt with Gwi-ong and the Ghost Demon Unit."
"……"
"You fought the way you always did. Not as the true master of the Cheongun Martial Arts Academy — but as Captain Jin of the Black Dragon Unit."
Jin Cheong-un's eyes wavered.
"Everything has changed, yet why do you try to master your martial arts the old way? What of the state of mind you're always preaching?"
"You're telling me to forget everything I've learned?"
"I'm not telling you to discard who you were. That man will serve as a weapon in its own right."
"……"
"The mountain you mean to climb has changed. If you go searching on the new mountain for the old path, of course you'll stray. Find the path again. The one that fits who you are now."
Jin Cheong-un's eyes grew clear. It felt as though something long jammed had crumbled away at last.
"Thank you."
Yeo Woon-baek smirked.
"If you're grateful, then write more often, you graceless wretch."
"Since I'm already in your debt, might I ask one more favor?"
"A favor?"
A resolute light flashed across Jin Cheong-un's face.
"You remember all the secret manuals we swept up wholesale from the Esoteric Cult's false teachings, don't you?"
"What's brought this on all of a sudden?"
"Might I have one of them?"
Yeo Woon-baek flinched.
So the day has finally come. The man's fallen head over heels for heterodox sorcery.