12. Yeongsan Sect (4)
Yeongsan Sect (4)
12. Yeongsan Sect (4)
"It worked out well, Young Master. I'm truly relieved I could repay the favor this way."
Son Yeong, who had guided me to a small room, said with a bright smile.
"You can just call me Junior Brother now."
"You haven't even undergone the initiation ceremony yet. Please rest in your room here, wash yourself clean, and then come to the Great Clarity Palace."
The Great Clarity Palace? That little shrine I saw earlier was the Great Clarity Palace? Even being generous, isn't it just a Great Clarity Hall at best?
"Yes. You've worked hard."
The long, arduous mission had ended safely, and the admission I had persistently asked for throughout the journey had been approved. Son Yeong closed the door and left with light steps. This was the room where I would live for the next three years. It was more spacious than I'd expected—better than the barracks from my twenty-first-century military service. There had been a Bloody Calamity not long ago, hadn't there? The incident in which the senior martial uncles and senior brothers had all been killed. I would learn the details in time, but for now, their deaths had left me with plenty of room. The bedding was little more than scraps of cloth and made me sigh, but I still had ample silver, so I could buy proper bedding in the village later.
Perhaps mentally exhausted, I lay on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. I had finally made it here. Once tonight's initiation ceremony ended, I would no longer be a guest of Yeongsan Sect. They were good people. Even Lee Eun-ha, who had been wary of me, turned out to be a kind woman desperately trying to protect her sect—aside, that was, from her habit of grumbling in Joseon whenever she thought no one could understand her.
After resting in my room for a while, I opened the window and saw Son Yeong practicing with her sword in the training ground, her face filled with joy. She must have been longing to train again. My own journey had only been twenty-odd days in a cart, but hers had lasted months, yet she had begun training without even resting. Her passion was remarkable. The only people in the training ground were Son Yeong and the youngest disciple, Cho-ryeong, who watched from a corner. As expected, this was an ideal sect where sword training was hardly a priority.
Son Yeong trained for a long while, then disappeared somewhere as the sun sank. With nothing else to do, I found myself practicing Qi Circulation and Breath Regulation in my room for reasons I didn't quite understand myself.
"Young Master. May I come in?"
A voice came from outside the door. Back at the Baek Clan Estate, a servant would have opened the door at a time like this, but here, I had to open it myself to see who my visitor was. Damp, glistening hair. The already too-beautiful Jeong-hyang was standing in front of my door, having just finished bathing. I had never imagined I'd see such a sight in this world, a 15th-century China-like place where not every house had its own shower room.
"The initiation ceremony will be held now, so it's time for you to wash up clean. And here in Yeongsan Sect, even when it's not a special day, we must keep our bodies clean every day."
She stood there with damp hair and a gentle smile, a vision of fresh beauty. Despite the Sect Leader's warning earlier, my heart was already pounding.
"Yes. I will keep that in mind."
"I'll show you where the bathing place is. You'll probably be quite surprised, you know?"
Jeong-hyang smiled radiantly as she guided me to Yeongsan Sect's pride and joy, its hot spring. I was sure the spring would be impressive, but could it possibly surprise me more than a beauty like you?
The hot spring Jeong-hyang showed me to was quite well maintained. The sight of steam billowing gently up stirred a sense of longing from my past life. But unlike the bathhouse-style hot springs I'd visited in my previous life, this was a natural hot spring, a small gushing spring where hot water continuously bubbled up and flowed down a slope. The bottom and the area around the pool were paved with flat stones someone had gathered—their workmanship was clumsy, but still. It was more impressive than I'd thought—no, more impressive than I ever could have imagined. A truly magnificent hot spring.
"I'm sorry, but since you're the only man, Young Master, please use this place after the moon rises."
At night, this hot spring was mine alone. It wasn't a tall mountain, but soaking my body while gazing at the stunning view spread behind the spring, the twinkling stars and the moon, was a luxury beyond even what the Baek Clan Head could enjoy.
Once Jeong-hyang, who had guided me here, disappeared, I stripped off my soiled clothes and stepped into the pool.
Wow... Perhaps this was the single most blissful moment of this life so far. Water that was too hot didn't seem like it would suit my body, which had grown up in freezing Jilin, but this open-air hot spring was really just the perfect temperature. I didn't want to get out of the pool, but tonight wasn't the only night, so for the initiation ceremony, I got out and changed into the new clothes I had prepared. Come to think of it, what was I supposed to do about laundry from now on? No matter that I was the youngest, my senior sisters, young women in their prime, probably wouldn't make me do their laundry, but I would still have to do my own. Oh well, I'd just take it back to my room for now and ask the senior sisters tomorrow.
The time came. When the moon had risen overhead, my initiation ceremony began in the humble Great Clarity Palace.
"Baek Eun-hyeok of the Baek Clan Estate. Will you now begin your training in the Dao as a disciple of Yeongsan Sect and act righteously in the world?"
Yeongsan Sect's initiation ceremony was quite different from the one at the Baek Clan Estate. It seemed that being a Daoist sect, they put some care into the formality of such occasions.
"Yes. I will."
"Every word and deed of yours shall henceforth be the word and deed of Yeongsan Sect. Will you be an upright cultivator, so as not to bring shame upon the name of this sect?"
"Yes. I will."
"Then first, bow before Taishang Laojun."
Following the Sect Leader's direction, I made a deep, formal bow to the portrait of Taishang Laojun.
"Next, perform the Nine Bows to the ancestral tablets of the grandmasters."
Even their ancestral tablets were humble in Yeongsan Sect. Following the Sect Leader's direction, I bowed nine times to the worn tablets.
"Then, I will hereby conclude the initiation ceremony for Disciple Baek Eun-hyeok. I earnestly hope that you will live harmoniously with your senior sisters from now on."
Huh? Is that... it?
"I... Excuse me, Sect Leader... no, Master. You're saying this is it?"
"Yes. That is the case, Disciple. Being called 'Master' by a male disciple gives me a rather novel feeling."
Unlike me, who was flustered, my master was calmly tidying the incense burner with a relaxed expression.
"Ah... no. I'm not well versed in the Daoist ways, but shouldn't I at least perform the Discipleship Ceremony and bow to you, Master?"
"This is embarrassing. The truth is, I'm only the acting Sect Leader. When my senior brothers and their disciples suddenly departed this world, I, despite being unqualified, took charge of the sect. For that reason, I decided I could not presume to receive your formal bow as master."
The face of my gentle, endlessly gentle master. The expressions of the other senior sisters were also serene, as if this was only natural. My head was spinning. Even if I had the common sense of the 21st century, I had also lived here as a martial artist for over twenty years, building up a new sense of how this fucked-up world worked, and now that common sense was being shattered to pieces.
"Even so, you should stop speaking so formally to me now. I am your disciple, after all."
"So you really didn't know, Disciple. It's late at night, so I'll explain it all to you slowly tomorrow. I hope you have sweet dreams on your first night as a disciple of Yeongsan Sect."
Disciple? What kind of address was that? In a Confucian society where ruler, teacher, and father were held as one, she was speaking respectfully to her own disciple. Hiding a small yawn behind one hand, Master left the Great Clarity Palace.
"Junior Brother, you should head in now too."
Even Senior Sister Son, who I was closest to, addressed me with that strange form of address.
"It's over? It's really over?"
"Junior Brother, I understand why you were looking forward to it. An initiation ceremony only happens once in a lifetime. But this is Yeongsan Sect. When night falls, we have to go to bed early."
Lee Eun-ha, who had been grumbling at me earlier, woke Cho-ryeong, who was nodding off, and spoke to me.
"Uh... why is that?"
They had gone so far as to have me bathe and purify myself, only to finish the initiation ceremony in three minutes. And they said they couldn't even tell me the reason for that right now.
"We have no choice, Junior Brother. The oil for the lamps is very precious."
Ah... well, that was true.
The senior sisters headed back to their rooms one by one. I was left alone in the dark, empty Great Clarity Palace, staring at the portrait of Taishang Laojun, and could only stand there in utter dismay. Had I been scammed? Had Yeongsan Sect found it too difficult to outright refuse my initiation, and so they just went through the motions? The portrait of Taishang Laojun gave me no answer at all. In the end, I had no choice but to return to my room, pull the scrap-cloth blanket over myself, and try to sleep.
I'd thought the cold would be less severe because this area was a bit further south than Jilin, but the draft whistling through the old window, the paper-thin blanket, and the deep mountain chill all combined to throw me a grand welcome party that my senior sisters hadn't even given me.
"Junior Brother. May I come in?"
Even in a room like this, sleep came easily. I had gone to bed a little late, but I reflexively sprang up at the voice of Senior Sister Jeong-hyang, the sect's chief disciple.
Fuck. I was screwed. In a flash, I recalled my past life: my first day of assignment to the barracks, and that dog of a senior soldier who had woken up before me just for kicks, roused me, and then chewed me out. To have the most senior member come and wake me on my first day as a disciple—I really must have let myself go soft.
"Yes. Please come in, Senior Sister."
When I hurriedly opened the door, Jeong-hyang stood there carrying a large basin filled with steaming hot-spring water. It was a bizarre sight, but unlike that bastard senior soldier from my past life, waking to the face of a beautiful woman wasn't unpleasant in the least.
"What is this?"
"Use this to lightly wash your face, and then go to the dining hall. Junior Sister Lee has prepared breakfast."
Good heavens. Even the servants at the Baek Clan Estate didn't bring wash water to my room. Yeongsan Sect, which had only looked peculiar before, was starting to seem terrifying now.
"Se... Senior Sister. Is this because of the silver I gave? You don't need to do this. I'm not a benefactor of Yeongsan Sect anymore, I'm the youngest disciple."
Jeong-hyang tilted her head at my words.
"I know that too, Junior Brother."
"Then why are you treating me like this? Why are you still speaking so formally and calling me Junior Brother? Please, speak casually to me."
At my words, Jeong-hyang smiled gently. It wasn't what I should have been thinking at a time like this, but she was really, unbelievably pretty.
"This is just how Yeongsan Sect has always been. Go have breakfast, then see Master. She will explain everything properly."
With those final words, she was about to leave the room, but then Jeong-hyang stopped in her tracks as if something had just occurred to her.
"Please leave the basin and any clothes you need washed right here in the room. Junior Sister Lee will take care of them once she's finished with breakfast."
My head began to throb. It felt just like the confusion I had suffered after being born into this world, when the common sense of my past life had clashed with that of this one. For the moment, I did as she said and went to the dining hall, where Lee Eun-ha had laid out a modest breakfast for me. As expected, it was so plain that it resembled something a lazy student living alone might prepare: white rice and cabbage kimchi, nothing more. I actually liked the meal, and Senior Sister Lee's cooking was good enough that the kimchi tasted much like what I remembered from my past life. But all four senior sisters, including her, stood silently in a neat row behind me like servants at Baek Clan Estate. I could not relax enough to enjoy the food. In the end, I forced down only two or three spoonfuls before going to find Master.
"Master. It's Eun-hyeok. Is it all right if I come in?"
"Ah! Just a moment. Goodness, I've been so absentminded... I even forgot that I had a disciple now and left the room untidy as usual. Please wait a moment. I'll put on some clothes."
Whoa. For starters, there was one thing about our master that I already deeply respected. In this freezing mountain village, she had slept with her clothes off? A moment later, the door flew open hastily. Judging by how out of breath she was, she really must have gotten dressed in a desperate hurry.
"Please come in, Disciple."
"Yes."
The bed was in an oddly chaotic state. Considering how composed she'd been yesterday, I had assumed it would be tidy.
"This is embarrassing. I'm not usually this messy."
She must have read my expression, because my master's face flushed red as she hurriedly made her excuses.
"It's because I'm on my period right now, so please don't misunderstand, my disciple."
"Me... Menstruation?"
"Ah... so you didn't know. Once women reach adulthood, they bleed from below every month. It's called menstruation. It's not dangerous, so please don't worry."
With a calm face, my master gave me some basic sex education.
"But my breasts swell during my period, and my clothes become uncomfortable. That's why I had taken them off. I hope you can understand, my disciple."
Good heavens. I had expected that upon entering Yeongsan Sect, I would learn and master things other than martial arts, but the first thing my master taught me was basic sex education.