How Does Brother Namgung Know About the Three Great Exercises…?
"……What… what did you just say……?!"
As if he had never even imagined such an answer from me, Brother Namgung's eyes flew wide open.
"……?
I said I wished to train in external arts and become a thoroughly manly, muscular giant of a man."
When I repeated myself, Brother Namgung seemed struck speechless. For a long moment he simply clamped one hand over his mouth.
"……I see. So that's how it is……
That's what you want, is it."
Perhaps my answer had not pleased him.
"Brother Namgung, is there some problem with me…?"
I asked out of a sudden, baseless anxiety, but he only shook his head.
"Ah—no… no, not at all.
Mm. To train the external arts, of course, one must first have sufficient internal energy to support it.
…So let us begin circulating qi."
"We start with the lower body.
Generate qi within the body through your breathing, then guide it to the places I indicate."
Following Brother Namgung's instruction, I took the faint qi I could feel inside me and guided it down through my waist and legs… into that place between the thighs… below the bladder.
The first stage of circulating qi through the lower body, harnessing abundant innate yin energy.
"……You were born with an abundance of yin energy in your body, so the first stage comes remarkably easily.
This is the Small Heavenly Cycle of the Femboy Divine Art."
Brother Namgung's voice, now bright with satisfaction, was nothing like the tone he had used moments earlier.
"The heart method of the Femboy Divine Art produces results extraordinarily quickly.
At your pace… well.
Within a week, every last hair below the eyes—except for the hair on your head—will be completely…?"
He had been examining my body with his own hands, tracing every inch, when his words suddenly trailed off.
"You… you haven't been shaving separately, have you…?"
"Shaving? What are you talking about?"
"……Never mind.
If you progress a little further, your skin will grow smooth and free of blemishes… though that effect is already unnecessary for you, I see. Yes. I already knew that.
Truly enviable."
"Ah… thank you."
I could not quite grasp the precise meaning of Brother Namgung's muttering, but praise was praise. Accepting it gratefully was only human nature.
"Mmm…
And if you advance a little more from there, the slick… ahem!
The waste matter will vanish and your insides will become clean."
"Just hearing it sounds incredible. How long must I train before I reach the next stage?"
"Naturally it varies wildly from person to person, but since you have already skipped the first two stages, three days should do it if all goes well."
Three days? It's not as if I'm learning to play go…
As if he had read my thoughts, Brother Namgung quickly added:
"I say this in advance lest you misunderstand—
the stage I just mentioned is nothing more than a waypoint you pass through.
It is true that your natural physique lets you learn the early stages at astonishing speed, yet the need for steady, continuous effort never changes.
Remember that."
And so we spent the entire morning training the heart method…
By the end I could perform the Small Heavenly Cycle on my own, without Brother Namgung guiding the flow.
"That will do for now.
…How does it feel, training a heart method for the first time?"
In answer to his question I carefully described every sensation in my body.
"Well, Brother Namgung… it's…
the room seems to have grown a little warmer,
and especially…
every time I gather the qi, there's this slight… tingling, sort of, in my belly…"
From the books I had read while living in hiding, the protagonists—whether they swallowed miraculous elixirs or possessed once-in-a-generation talent—would reach the Five Qi Toward the Origin or the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown in a single sitting of their very first energy circulation.
Of course I was no protagonist from a book. Hearing Brother Namgung's praise-laced prediction that I would learn quickly from day one, I was already reasonably satisfied simply to have mastered the heart method without trouble.
A man should know his place. Absolutely.
They say praise can make even a whale dance. This was probably just Brother Namgung's personal teaching method, meant to stoke a student's motivation… yet even knowing full well that the encouragement was deliberate, every time he tossed out remarks like "you have more talent than I do" or "you learn so quickly," it still felt good.
Brother Namgung really is a good person.
Absolutely not…! because he praises me so much.
Honestly, though our childhood friendship had been deep…
all I could remember was tagging after him calling "Big brother— Big brother—" and nothing particularly special beyond that.
Was there…?
No. There probably wasn't.
Anyway… with only that much of a bond, how many people in this world would dress you in expensive clothes even if they disliked the look, feed you delicious food, and even teach you martial arts? Brother Namgung was a rare good man.
Of course, deep in the courtyard there is a tiny box of gold bars—about ten jin's worth…
Ten jin of gold.
Not a trivial sum, yet to Brother Namgung it would hardly be a fortune.
Not unless the entire wealth of the Namgung Clan had been dumped into the Yangtze.
My father had held a weak position even within the family; he could not have left much hidden wealth. And I had been a child when I went into hiding.
In other words, neither the family's secret assets nor any information about them could be extracted from me. Whether they even existed was uncertain.
Brother Namgung surely knew I had little or nothing hidden away. He had no reason to fleece me; if he had wanted nonexistent treasure he could simply have put a blade to my throat and threatened me.
I felt pathetic and sorry for calculating like this in front of my benefactor, yet I had thrown away an entire decade of my life hiding in the mountains because I valued my neck, and I had originally intended to remain hidden for the rest of my days.
So, to put it simply…
Brother Namgung was showing me pure goodwill, and he was, for all practical purposes, my sole benefactor and lifeline.
I looked at him with gratitude as deep as rivers and seas.
……
Only now did I notice: today Brother Namgung was wearing an extremely short pair of navy trousers that clung to his hips—whether pants or undergarments was hard to tell—together with a white top.
Hah… those thighs, and that backside…
Why did those pants have to cling so tightly to that white skin?
The smooth lines of his pelvis and hips were fully visible; I felt embarrassed just looking.
"…Are you that happy about learning the heart method…?
Or is it this outfit that pleases you.
These are called lantern pants—in the Japanese style they are known as bloomers…"
Unfortunately, Brother Namgung misread the look in my eyes, and until mealtime I was subjected to relentless pressure to try the bloomers on myself.
"Th-th-this… macaron?
One plate of these, please."
"Hai!
…I mean, yes—! One plate of macarons, order received!"
Brother Namgung watched me place my lunch order with a peculiar expression.
"I have no desire to meddle excessively in your eating habits… yet making entire meals out of sweets for two days straight is a bit… much, is it not?"
"Please cut me some slack.
I've never tasted sweets this delicious in my entire life."
True, down in the village at the foot of the mountain I had occasionally bought dried fruit… honestly I bought some every time I purchased provisions, but these sweet confections made even the mooncakes I used to eat only on festival days before going into hiding look like nothing.
"Here are the macarons you ordered!"
I still had no idea what a "macaron" actually was, but the round, flat little cakes looked perfect for eating one at a time in a single bite.
That aside.
The waiter still working perfectly normally without lower garments was, without a doubt, the same person who last night had been lifted in the powerful arms of a middle-aged man and, after hundreds of violent collisions of flesh, had collapsed as if fainting.
Both he and I were only a few years past the age of twenty, yet while I could at least call myself a proper man—at least in my own opinion—the waiter's conduct was so outrageous the more I thought about it that I found it genuinely difficult to look him in the face.
Even so, I would have treated him with the unshakable composure of Mount Tai itself… or so I told myself.
Yet no matter how calm my outward expression, every time I faced the waiter the vivid scenes from last night rose before my eyes, and I could not help being "just a tiny bit" flustered.
"I have been watching you throughout the meal…
have you been secretly peeping at the waiter?
You lose your composure every time you look at him."
As if mocking my thoughts, Brother Namgung struck straight at the heart of the matter.
"Wh-wh-wh-what are you saying!
I absolutely did not peep or anything of the sort…"
Disaster.
I had drilled a hole through the wall and spied on the neighboring room—an utterly shameless crime. And that was not all. If the authorities subjected me to the "strict investigation" they called torture, I would inevitably reveal my family name as well; I could already see the future in which I sat helpless in prison until a blade of vengeance sank into my neck.
"…I was joking. Do not be so embarrassed.
You look as though your life ends today.
Having staff dress in a way that gives customers something to look at and thereby increases sales is the most basic of basics."
"…Pardon?"
"He is practically the signboard of this inn, so it is only natural you could not keep your wits about you while staring at his legs."
"No, that is…"
Thank heavens…… He didn't catch me…
I wiped my chest in relief.
After the meal Brother Namgung outlined the rest of the day's schedule.
"I had originally intended to let you do as you pleased… yet you still have energy to spare, so let us visit a fitness hall."
"A fitness hall?
What kind of place is that?"
"A paid external-arts training ground that has been rapidly growing popular these past few years.
Five silver coins a month."
"That is nearly half a bushel of rice!"
"Even so, the efficiency is entirely different from training in the mountains or fields. Come along for now."
Trailing after Brother Namgung, I arrived at the fitness hall—and found myself without any word to describe it except "truly bizarre."
"Hngh……!"
"Hoo……!"
"Hahaha! At last—bench press two hundred jin! Two hundred jin success!"
A man lay on a long backless bench, sliding iron plates onto a bar and pressing it upward.
"Grrngh…!
Today's leg extension is pure murder…!"
"Push through! On leg day you are supposed to crawl home!"
A man sat on a strange chair, extending his legs with all his might.
"Holding a plank for half a shichen! Incredible!"
"Heh…. You improve if you just keep at it."
One man simply lay face-down with his arms on the floor while another admired him and a third looked proud…
"Brother Namgung, what on earth is this place…."