Third-Rate (7) — Chapter 3: Third-Rate Martial Arts (1)
Wake up.
Yuk Daemo said it in a low voice.
The art she had unleashed on Jin Yigang was a soul-ensnaring technique known as Demon Spirit Whisper.
Demon Spirit Whisper was the secret art of Mihwan, the Color Demoness, one of the Three Demonesses of the Central Plains. The martial world of the Central Plains was home to countless kinds of martial arts, among them those that bewitched men and women alike to subdue them — arts collectively called Saekgong, the erotic arts. The terror of Saekgong lay in its power to seize an opponent's mind and enslave them like a puppet.
More women than men mastered Saekgong, for when the art was performed with a peerless body, its effects were doubled. In the current Central Plains there were three supreme practitioners of the art — Cheonyo, Miyo, and Saekyo — and together they were known as the Three Demonesses of the Central Plains. One of those three stood before Jin Yigang now: the Color Demoness, Mihwan.
Jin Yigang shot to his feet.
"Hup!"
Yuk Daemo let out a gasp before she could stop herself.
The man Jin Yigang had become exceeded anything she had imagined. Heat began to smolder and rise within her.
This thing……
Yuk Daemo lifted her head and looked at his face.
"Now that I think of it, he's tall."
It suddenly struck her how considerable his height was. And it wasn't only his height. Her gaze drifted back to where it had been before.
Yuk Daemo had been with many men over the years.
There was no other way to gauge her own attainment in Saekgong than by seducing them.
Of course, one could seduce without ever taking things further. But Yuk Daemo had never seen the point of stopping there. Besides, siphoning off a trickle of internal force with her essence-draining art each time had done her a great deal of good. Her favorite saying back then had been: even dust piled up becomes a mountain.
At any rate, after so many men, she could size one up from a single glance at him naked. Jin Yigang's physique was superb; his manhood was a masterpiece beyond superb.
"Ah, to hell with it! Let's just enjoy ourselves first."
Embrace me!
She gave the command.
"Yes."
Jin Yigang knelt at once and took her in his arms. And Yuk Daemo let go of the last thread of her reason.
It was half a shijin later when she came back to herself.
Jin Yigang was still holding her, dazed as ever.
"I've lost my mind."
Yuk Daemo stared at him, dumbfounded. She had lain with countless men, yet she had lost her reason only three times — and all three back when she was first learning Saekgong. Not once since completing the Color Soul Demoness Divine Art.
And now, with Jin Yigang, she had lost it a fourth time. Worse, he had been the one with his mind gone.
Insane. Absolutely insane. I even said his name out loud……
Yuk Daemo shook her head.
"It must be because it's been so long. Yes. Nearly ten years, after all."
Wake up.
She gave the command while pleasuring herself.
Jin Yigang shot to his feet.
Yuk Daemo swallowed involuntarily.
You shameless woman. There are limits. We just did it. Just now.
She smacked her own head, then examined Jin Yigang's dantian with meticulous care. The scar from the blade cut still marked it, black lines spreading in every direction. No poison leaked out.
"Come closer."
Jin Yigang drifted toward her like a man in a trance. Yuk Daemo pressed her palm against his dantian.
She fed her internal force into him, confirmed everything down to the core, and spoke.
"From now on, you'll remember only that I pushed your back and sent you on your way. That will be all you recall. Do you understand?"
"Understood."
'Understood.'
Yuk Daemo tilted her head. He should have said 'Yes,' not 'Understood.'
"Sit."
Jin Yigang sat where he was.
When he obeyed, Yuk Daemo gave a small nod. Then she pushed his back and stepped out of the hot spring.
Long after she had gone in, Jin Yigang entered the room. The table was laden end to end with food.
"What is all this?"
Jin Yigang asked, wide-eyed.
"Just something I threw together."
"If this is what you throw together, I'd hate to see what happens when you actually put your mind to it."
"Now you see what I can do?"
"Isn't it a bit much, though?"
"You've more than earned the right to eat this."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"There's such a thing."
"I don't know what earning the right to eat means, but I'll eat well and gratefully."
Jin Yigang broke into a wide grin, picked up a morsel with his chopsticks, and brought it to his mouth.
"Whoa—!"
He looked at Yuk Daemo with astonished eyes.
The food melted on his tongue.
It was far better than anything he'd paid for in a restaurant. The stir-fried beef and vegetables in particular was transcendent — the oil rendered from thinly sliced beef mingled with the vegetable broth in perfect, almost magical balance.
"You're not eating, Daemo?"
"May I?"
"What's the point of a feast for one? Eat with me."
"If you insist."
Yuk Daemo picked up her chopsticks as well, and the two of them ate while trading bits of conversation.
"They say you passed the Imperial Examination……"
"Passed the examination, my ass."
Jin Yigang shrugged.
"Well, the world has changed. What good is a examination rank anymore? It just leaves a bitter taste."
Yuk Daemo nodded.
"Ask anything else you're curious about."
"Do you have family?"
"What is this, a census?"
"What?"
Yuk Daemo's eyes went round as saucers. This time implied he'd been through something like it before. And the only thing she had done to him was embrace him while his mind was gone.
No — even whether she had been the one embracing him was murky.
She had lost her reason just as he had.
Could he know?
Yuk Daemo studied his expression.
But there was nothing to be read on Jin Yigang's face.
"Nothing. You just seem curious about a lot of things. I have a father — a man with two dear friends: liquor and gambling."
"And your mother?"
"No memory of ever meeting her, and Father never spoke of her. So I don't know."
"Tsk!"
Yuk Daemo clicked her tongue.
"Do you know your mother, Daemo?"
"Me?"
"Yeah."
"I…… don't remember."
An orphan from the start — of course she wouldn't.
"Keep making just this, until the day I say I'm too full of it to eat another bite."
"Understood."
When the meal was done, the two of them went outside.
Since Jin Yigang didn't know his way around, Yuk Daemo offered to walk him to the library. The library building looked nearly as ancient as the Cheonin Stone Lodge.
"Ah, Daemo's here."
An old man dozing at the entrance greeted her familiarly. He was Seok Mandae, the Paper Physician, caretaker of the Medical Library.
"Yes. The young master said he wanted to look around the library."
"Young master?"
The old man looked at Jin Yigang.
"If anything puzzles you, ask the Manor Lord yourself. He can go in, I suppose?"
Jin Yigang pointed inside.
"Short with your words, aren't you."
"I decided to enjoy myself to the fullest."
"Enjoy what, exactly, to the fullest?"
Seok Mandae asked.
"This 'young master' status, and my fate."
"Fate?"
"I've become something scarier than a blind man, haven't I."
"What in the……"
"Can I go in?"
"Go on in."
The old man nodded.
Jin Yigang strode inside without ceremony.
"Whoa—!"
A gasp escaped his lips.
The word overwhelmed fit perfectly — the books were beyond counting.
Sniff sniff! Ahh — the smell of fresh ink.
A deeply satisfied smile settled around his mouth.
"Madman, this one."
The old man snorted a laugh.
"It's all medical texts?"
Jin Yigang ran his eyes along the shelves as he passed. The books were sorted into external injuries, internal injuries, and treatments organized by part of the body.
"Of course a medical manor's library has medical texts, you fool."
"Could I read all of these in half a month?"
"Not in your dreams, you fool."
"Maybe not you, old man. But I can."
Midway down the shelves, Jin Yigang stopped at one spot.
That shelf held the books on tumors. Apparently few physicians had ever studied them — there weren't even ten. The rest were volumes with nothing to do with tumors at all.
"Let's have a look."
He sat down right there and began to read. Once he started, Jin Yigang plunged in with frightening intensity.
Yuk Daemo and Seok Mandae watched him quietly.
"So that's the tumor fellow?"
Seok Mandae asked. After that incident, Jin Yigang had been known around Jecheon Medical Manor simply as Tumor.
"Yes."
Yuk Daemo nodded.
"Outsiders can't set foot in here. How did this come about?"
"The Manor Lord took him as an adopted son."
"Adopted son?"
"I don't know the details myself."
She knew. It simply wasn't a matter to be bandied about.
"A man who even placed first in the Imperial Examination — how did it come to this……"
The old man clicked his tongue.
"Was that rumor true, then?"
Yuk Daemo asked, astonished.
"All he had to do was stand before the Emperor and hear the words 'You are the Zhuangyuan.' And then the world turned upside down on him."
"Good heavens……"
"Anyway, the man has luck like a curse. Never even managed to marry……"
The old man clicked his tongue again.
Meanwhile, Jin Yigang had pulled out a second book and was reading it.
"By the way, Elder Seok — are you married?"
"You're asking because you don't know it's your fault?"
"Why would it be my fault?"
"Whose fault is it that I've lived alone all these years, if not the man who refused my proposal of marriage?"
"Do you have any idea how many years apart we are?"
"I was always told a man needs nothing but the strength to lift a spoon to father a child."
"Maybe all a man needs is to father a child, but a woman is different."
"Different how?"
"You don't know, and that's why you're still a bachelor. Anyway, Elder — go practice lifting that spoon of yours."
"Heh heh heh! Why do you think I've been lifting two spoons at a time lately?"
"Hohohoho!"
Yuk Daemo laughed softly.
While the two of them traded banter, Jin Yigang finished every book on tumors. Then he scanned the lower shelves, picked out a single volume, and carried it out with him.
"Can I borrow this?"
Jin Yigang asked, setting the book on the table. It was half a japo thick.
"Isn't that one titled Third-Rate Martial Arts?"
"It is."
Jin Yigang nodded.
"So it's true."
"What's true?"
"That it really only contains third-rate arts."
"You read it?"
"A little of the front, then stopped."
"I'm not taking it for the content. I'm taking it for the thickness."
"Thickness?"
"Thick books last longer. See you tomorrow."
Jin Yigang waved a hand and headed out.
His next destination was the place Yuk Daemo had called the Thousand Martial Plaza — home of the Thousand Martial Statues.
But two people were already there ahead of him. A man and a woman — the man very tall, the woman very small. Perhaps because the man was so towering, the woman looked smaller still.
As Jin Yigang approached, both turned their heads. The man's face was unfamiliar; the small woman was Gung Yo, a Geomseonin of one year's standing.
"New recruit?"
Jin Yigang asked.
"……Bukgung Hansang."
The man was that same young swordsman who had been talking with the old man in front of the tablet hall.
"Eat the poison pills in order — Dokdan first, Yeongdan last."
Jin Yigang said it as he handed the book over to Yuk Daemo.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Ask her. You'll find out."
Jin Yigang tipped his chin toward Gung Yo.
"What's your name?"
Bukgung Hansang asked.
"Je Suryong."
"Je Suyong? Isn't that the food laid out on a memorial altar?"
"Not Suyong. Suryong."
"Wasn't your original name Jin Yigang?"
Gung Yo asked, staring at him levelly.
"Changed it."
Jin Yigang walked up before the Thousand Martial Statues and stripped off his shirt. Yuk Daemo stepped over and took it from him. Without pause, Jin Yigang began his push-ups.
His routine never changed. A hundred with both hands, then fifty with each hand alone, then a stone slung behind his neck — squatting until his hips touched his calves and rising again, over and over. Around the fiftieth repetition, sweat began streaming down his forehead.
After the hundred, he set the stone down.
Then he faced the Thousand Martial Plaza and gathered his breath.
"Let's see what he's on about today."
Pa-at!
Jin Yigang kicked off the ground and dashed into the ranks of the statues.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
A barrage of dull impacts followed.
Bukgung Hansang stared at Jin Yigang with stunned eyes.
"Keh! Keh-heh-heh!"
Laughter soon burst out of him.