Ten Things to Do Before I Die (1)
Jin Yigang hauled the fish out of the water.
First things first — he had to confirm whether it really was a Ten Thousand Years Fire Carp. The legendary carp was said to have a body red as blood and a white belly.
He brought it up into the moonlight and examined it.
"That's it."
He broke into a wide grin. There was no doubt about it — a Ten Thousand Years Fire Carp.
"Blood first."
He drew his dagger, slit the tail open lengthwise, and put the wound to his mouth. A fishy liquid flooded his mouth. He swallowed it down in several gulps until no more would come.
"Not one chi — one and a half. Ugh! Here it comes!"
A bone-deep chill swept through his entire body. The blood of the Fire Carp carried the essence of Extreme Yin, while its inner core carried Extreme Yang. Swallow either one alone and you would either freeze to death or burn alive. The two had to be taken together, without fail. Jin Yigang immediately split open the pearly white belly. Inside sat a golden orb.
The creature's inner core.
"Down the hatch, all of it."
He scooped everything from the carp's belly into his mouth and chewed it down. The organs were just as rank as the blood, but he couldn't have cared less.
"Now…… head first."
He stretched his jaws wide and started crunching through from the skull.
Thanks, perhaps, to the inner core he'd just swallowed, the chill seemed to be ebbing away bit by bit.
Eating a whole carp a chi and a half long, alone, was no easy feat. But Jin Yigang refused to quit, slowly grinding down every last bone. He didn't leave so much as a single fin of the Fire Carp behind.
"Ugh!"
The cold hadn't vanished. From somewhere terribly deep, a cold surged up that felt as though it would freeze his very soul. Jin Yigang hurriedly folded into a cross-legged position and began circulating his qi.
"Uuuuuuuuh!"
His whole body shook and his teeth clattered together. He couldn't hold a single coherent thought. All he could do was recite the Great Heaven and Earth Ten Thousand Streams Art without pause.
'That damned dantian…….'
However madly he circulated his qi, nothing improved. If only he'd had a developed dantian, he wouldn't be suffering like this, he thought.
"Come on, please……."
The moment he was about to give up on the circulation, warmth came flooding in.
'I might actually live. Dammit…….'
He'd barely managed a smile when a savage heat surged over him next. It was so vicious he could barely breathe. Even through all of it, Jin Yigang never stopped circulating. He had no idea whether it was even working. It was simply the only thing he could do, so he kept at it.
The truth was, he didn't much care whether the circulation worked or not. The real problem was the tumor lodged in his dantian. If he could just get rid of that, he'd do anything at all. Chewing down a Fire Carp fin by fin was child's play by comparison.
He cycled between the freezing cold and the burning yang, circulating without pause. For a full shichen he was wracked alternately by ice and fire before it finally released him.
When it was over, he checked his dantian.
"Son of a—!"
The tumor was still there.
"Ugh, fine! Might as well digest, then."
He dove back into the water.
Catching the Fire Carp had taught him something. The moment he slipped beneath the surface, he raised a mental image in his mind and began unleashing the Three Calamities Fist. At first it was nothing but flailing. But as time passed, a form slowly took shape. He found his balance underwater, shifted his footwork, and drove out his fists.
Fists that had once merely reached out began, at some point, to carry force. The power grew little by little, and the current began to move. The water he pushed away crashed into other currents and grew stronger still.
Jin Yigang kept punching as he pressed forward. Waves rose on the windless surface of the lake.
As time went on the waves grew fiercer, their crests climbing half a jang high.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The sound of fists cutting the water rang in his ears.
Jin Yigang stared at a single point one jang away and drove his fist out.
'The point isn't here. It's beyond the wall.'
Thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!
He kept his consciousness fixed past that wall, punching on and on.
'Ride the flow. Don't skip it — carry the strike on the current and let it burst a full jang away. Lay it on the flow.'
A hundred strikes. Two hundred. Three hundred…… a thousand.
Ten thousand.
Oblivious to whether the sun rose or set, Jin Yigang punched without rest. When his chest grew tight, he would poke just his head out, spit out the breath he'd been holding, and dive back under.
He thought he'd seen the sun and the moon twice each, but he couldn't be sure. He made his meals of fish and water plants. Whenever he threw a punch, the unlucky fish in the vicinity were knocked senseless by the shockwaves — then they'd drift around like floating debris, and all he had to do was grab one and bring it to his mouth.
Nothing that grew in Sun Heavenly Pool could possibly be ordinary. Maybe not a peerless elixir, but surely good enough for a tonic. He stuffed his hunger with those and kept punching.
BOOM!
'Heh!'
Jin Yigang beamed — and a mouthful of water poured in with the grin.
He gulped it down.
Moments ago, the water a full jang away had exploded. He had leapt clean over the wall of water itself and struck beyond it. At long last, he had grasped the Dark King Fist of the Demon Lord.
He couldn't say whether it matched the real technique, but he seemed to have mastered something very like it.
Sploosh!
At that very moment, something large dropped from above.
"What's that?"
Jin Yigang's eyes went wide. What had fallen from above was a person.
A woman, at that.
Normally someone plunging into water would thrash and flail — but the woman didn't stir an inch. She was either dead or unconscious, one of the two.
Jin Yigang quickly caught her.
Then he felt his way along the cliff and rose with her until they broke the surface. Keeping only his head above water, he looked around. People were wandering about, searching for someone.
'Looks like they're looking for her.'
Jin Yigang carried the woman to the cave where Fist King Dam Dae-gyeong's remains lay.
'Should've grabbed a night lamp. And speaking of which…….'
He examined the woman. He needed to find out where and how badly she was hurt, but in her current state there was no telling.
"I know I've seen that face somewhere…… huh?"
Jin Yigang startled. Unbelievably, the woman was Yuk Daemo, Head Maid of the Jecheon Medical Immortal Family.
"Daemo, what are you doing here……."
He stared at her, puzzled — then shook his head.
"No, no, this isn't the time."
He rummaged through the front of her robes.
"Tsk!"
He clicked his tongue before long. A woman from the Jecheon Medical Immortal Family, and not so much as a single one of the most common internal-injury pills on her.
"Guess I'll have to go fetch some."
He dove straight into the water and swam off. After playing around underwater for three days, his swimming speed was phenomenal. He crossed the entire lake submerged.
Back at the cave, he gathered the medicine and returned to the lakeside, where he tucked the pills into his mouth.
'I'll need to purge the poison anyway…….'
He dove down to the cave.
'Huh?'
Climbing the steps, he froze. Yuk Daemo was gone.
"Daemo, it's me, Jin Yigang."
He called out, scanning the area.
"Young Master?"
Her voice came from the stone chamber where Dam Dae-gyeong's body rested.
"Yeah."
Jin Yigang hurried inside. Yuk Daemo was sitting propped against the wall.
"Young Master, what are you doing here……."
"You're the lucky one, Daemo. I just happened to be swimming below — otherwise……."
"Thank you."
"Here, eat this first."
Jin Yigang pulled the internal-injury pill from his mouth and held it out.
"……"
Yuk Daemo just stared at him.
"It's a potentized Socheon Divine Pill with poison coated on the outside. It has to be washed off before you take it."
"Even so, washing it with your saliva is a bit much, don't you think?"
"Rinsing it with water works fine too, but then you'd be throwing away a perfectly good pill. The best way to waste nothing is to wash it with your mouth."
"Pfft."
Yuk Daemo stifled a laugh.
"Eat it."
"Thank you."
Yuk Daemo took the Socheon Divine Pill he'd offered.
"So Daemo doesn't throw it up, huh?"
"Did someone else vomit it up?"
"Not a woman. A man."
"Who?"
"Mu Daebo. The man went on and on about sending a memorial to the Emperor right there on the spot."
"So you gave that to a man?"
"If he'd die without it, you hand it over no matter how precious it is. What choice is there?"
"Hohohoho!"
Yuk Daemo burst out laughing.
"Can't you circulate your qi?"
"Well…… it's not something qi circulation can fix."
Yuk Daemo shook her head.
"What do you mean?"
"What struck me is called Ice White Palm — one of the Six Great Calamity Arts of the world. When Ice White lands, your whole body freezes slowly, from the outside in."
"There's really no way to dissolve it?"
"You'd have to take a Blazing Yang Pill or some Extreme Yang treasure first, and then circulate your qi."
"There's no Blazing Yang Pill in my medicine box either……?"
"There is one more way."
"Which is?"
"Treating it with the Grand Yin-Yang Method."
"So men count as medicine too?"
"Yes."
"If you're all right with it, Daemo, then let's."
"Thank you. Now I'll recite the mantra for you."
Yuk Daemo recited the formula of the Grand Yin-Yang Method of Harmony. She could have used the Demon Spirit Puppetry to make a marionette of him and taken him as before, but today she didn't want to do it that way.
"Got it."
Jin Yigang, who had memorized the formula, nodded.
"What I just recited is the formula of the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art. It's the supreme healing art a man and a woman can use together, so commit it to memory."
Yuk Daemo said with a sweet smile.
"Will I ever actually need it?"
"No one ever knows what life will throw at them, do they?"
"True enough. Say — was that smile just now also one of your charm arts?"
"Yes. Now come over here to me."
Yuk Daemo said, slipping off her clothes. True to her epithet, the Lustful Enchantress, her figure was staggering. It wasn't even the first time he'd seen it, and still Jin Yigang swallowed hard.
"Channel the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art."
Yuk Daemo whispered as she undressed him. Jin Yigang shuddered. There was something in her voice — a strange resonance that stirred something primal.
"That voice is……"
"Seductive Soul-Stealing Demon Words. A form of charm art."
Yuk Daemo lay down directly in front of him.
"Before we open the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art, I need you to work the meridian-kneading first."
Meridian kneading meant treating the body by striking and kneading it all over to unblock stagnant qi.
"Doesn't that require internal energy?"
"Having internal energy doubles the effect, but at the preparatory stage of the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art, kneading alone is enough."
"Teach me."
"Of course."
Yuk Daemo explained the method in careful detail, and the moment the explanation ended, they began.
"This would be beyond ordinary willpower."
Kneading a woman's whole body was no simple task.
"That's what meridian kneading is — hard on the healer and the healed alike."
"I'd imagine. Thank goodness you're a woman, Daemo."
"What's that supposed to…… pfft!"
Yuk Daemo stifled a laugh.
As time passed, she began to squirm beneath his hands. When the kneading reached its height, Yuk Daemo drew Jin Yigang into her arms and activated the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art. A sunset-gold radiance flowed out from both their bodies. Since this was a healing, there was no need to restrain instinct.
After half a shichen, the light pouring from the two of them faded away.
Yuk Daemo turned her senses inward, examining her body.
If she hadn't been cured, they would have to do it again, after all.
"This is……?"
Yuk Daemo gasped.
Not only had her body been made whole — her internal energy seemed to have grown as well.
In truth, though the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art was known to the world as a charm art, it was in fact an internal cultivation method. Healing was merely a side effect gained in the course of practicing the art. Legend had it that the Sun Divine Lord and the Heavenly Yin Goddess, who created it, practiced the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art steadily their whole lives and by their final years possessed the greatest internal energy under heaven.
"What is it?"
Jin Yigang asked.
"Have you taken any elixirs lately?"
"I stuffed myself with elixirs at the Jecheon Medical Immortal Family constantly."
"That's true, but……"
Yuk Daemo tilted her head.
"What's wrong?"
"It's not just that I'm healed. It feels like my internal energy actually increased."
"Doesn't the Heavenly Desire Phoenix Art have that effect to begin with?"
"It does, but you're not even a martial artist, Young Master."
"I told you — I ate elixirs like they were rice."
"Shall we try once more?"
"You're not just being greedy now, are you?"
"Th-that's absurd."
Yuk Daemo's face flushed red.
"There is one thing I'm curious about, though……"
"What is it?"
"Do people ever get a nosebleed doing… that?"
"A nosebleed?"
"It's one of my Ten Things I Want to Do Before I Die — doing it until my nose bleeds. If it doesn't happen, I was planning to swap it out."
"What are the ten?"
"First — place first in the imperial examinations.
Second — do absolutely nothing for a whole month.
Third — do it until my nose bleeds.
Fourth — taste the most delicious food in the world.
Fifth — sit on a cushion of money.
Sixth — stand on Akyang Tower and look down over Dongjeong Lake.
Seventh — become the greatest under heaven.
Eighth — be a dashing hero, just once.
Ninth — touch a jiangshi.
Tenth — curse out the Emperor to his face."