“If I knew the answer, would I be in this state?”
Chusaeng shouted.
He certainly was hot-blooded. There couldn’t be many people who could shout like this at a demonic practitioner, knowing full well that the other party’s martial arts were far superior to their own.
“My apologies. These days, the vessel of my patience is filled to the brim and sloshing over. Drop so much as a pebble into it and it spills.”
“I understand.”
“What do you understand?”
He flared up again, then soon apologized.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t something I should be taking out on you.”
“It’s all right. In a situation like this, wouldn’t it be stranger to remain calm?”
Chusaeng said to me in a slightly softened tone.
“What should we do now?”
“Do as you normally would. Pretend I’m not here and proceed with whatever you meant to do.”
“How am I supposed to pretend you’re not here when you are?”
“Focus only on yourself. In a situation where your life hangs in the balance, what can’t be done?”
I took out the paper on which information about him was written and handed it to him outright.
“Keep that with you at all times, and when you feel confused or your confidence falters, unfold it and read it. Especially don’t forget the part about you being sharp. You are a sharp man. So use that clever head of yours and judge well.”
Chusaeng clenched the paper he had been reading. It seemed even that paper was about to make his vessel of patience overflow. He could not bring himself to tear it up, and instead tucked the crumpled sheet into his robes.
“How do you intend to move now? If I hadn’t come, would you have sent word to the Murim Alliance?”
At my question, Chusaeng pondered for a moment, then shook his head.
“I would sooner have joined hands with the Sado Alliance than call the Murim Alliance.”
“Then will you join hands with the Sado Alliance?”
“Not them either.”
He was answering honestly. Even before the regression, he had not joined hands with either the Murim Alliance or the Sado Alliance.
“Then how were you planning to resolve this?”
“I don’t know.”
At that very moment, I saw it. The slight tremor in his eyes. To deceive me, he would have to be capable of deceiving even himself, and he was still far too young.
‘So there is something he is hiding from me.’
But I did not pressure him. It was only natural that he would not trust someone he had just met. When the other party is trying to hide something, pressing them only gets you lies or excuses. At times like this, one must respond calmly.
“Let us rest for today.”
* * *
Seokhyeong guided me to the guest room.
Good food and wine were brought out. I checked each dish with a silver needle to see if it had been poisoned, then finished my meal.
Afterward, I trained in the Wind God Four Steps in my room. If the space was narrow, I trained accordingly; if it was wide, I trained accordingly. Training in a room was an extension of the spar I had shared with Father at the inn earlier, so it was highly effective.
Now that I had set the goal of reaching great completion before receiving instruction in the Guhwa Demonic Art, my training would not stop.
* * *
When the moon hung bright and full in the sky, I went to see Chusaeng.
Despite the late hour, he had not fallen asleep and was lost in thought in his room.
“Did you rest well?”
“I rested well, but Sect Master Chu seems not to have slept a wink.”
“I haven’t been sleeping properly lately.”
Indeed, Chusaeng’s eyes were bloodshot red.
“If you cannot sleep, you cannot make proper judgments.”
“What can I do when sleep will not come even if I want it to?”
“Try sleeping properly for even one day. Shall I help you?”
“How? Are you going to press my sleeping acupoint?”
“There is a secret method for falling asleep when sleep won’t come that I learned from our cult’s demon physician.”
At the words that I had learned it from a demon physician, Chusaeng seemed intrigued.
“Now, there’s nothing to lose, so lie down on the bed.”
“This is embarrassing for a grown man.”
Contrary to his words, Chusaeng must have been suffering greatly from his sleeplessness, for he obediently lay down on the bed like a new bride.
“Do as I say. First, relax the muscles of your face. Next, let the tension out of your shoulders and arms. More comfortably. Now, this time, relax your thighs and both legs entirely. And imagine that you are lying on a sandy beach beneath warm sunlight. Good. Then raise a strand of qi from your dantian and slowly move it as I instruct. From the Shuifen acupoint to the Zhongwan acupoint, from Zhongting to the Yutang acupoint, slowly. And then again…”
* * *
When Chusaeng opened his eyes, it was morning.
Awakening on the bed, he was bewildered. He had not slept properly in recent days, yet the throbbing headache was gone, and his body felt light enough to fly. He truly had slept so deeply it was astonishing.
“Ah! That secret method!”
It seemed he had fallen asleep without realizing it while following the method taught to him by that man from the Demon Cult whose name he did not even know.
Chusaeng climbed down from the bed and hurried out of the room.
Geom Mugeuk was in the main hall where they had first met yesterday, staring at the marks on the wall.
“You’ve come?”
“Thanks to you, I slept well. I don’t know how long it’s been since I slept that deeply.”
“Sect Master Chu seems like a man suited to the righteous faction.”
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“I thought the reason Sect Master Chu couldn’t sleep was because of guilt over failing to protect your subordinates.”
“What nonsense are you spouting? I was simply angry at that man. I couldn’t sleep because I was so furious and resentful I couldn’t master my own temper.”
Chusaeng disliked being treated as part of the righteous faction. This was largely due to his father’s influence. Ever since he was young, his father had taught him that if one was kind, one would be taken advantage of.
“Do you think I could have survived in this jianghu until now with such half-baked feelings? Ridiculous. Don’t irritate me with pointless words.”
“Understood.”
When he accepted it too readily, Chusaeng grew angry in his own way again. He had come to thank him for helping him sleep well, yet for no reason he was only raising his voice.
Then Geom Mugeuk turned and pointed to the wall as he asked.
“This hole here.”
“Ah, I made a few of those because I was angry. I’m on the verge of making another one even now.”
“Not those. This one.”
There was a small hole where Geom Mugeuk pointed.
“Is this the hole made by the finger wind he fired?”
Chusaeng’s expression stiffened.
“That’s right. It pierced through my subordinate and went on to pierce that wall. I deliberately told them not to patch this place. So I could look at it again and again and remember what happened that day.”
Geom Mugeuk’s expression was grave as he looked at the hole.
“What is it?”
“It looks exactly like the real Hyeorang Finger.”
“Are you perhaps referring to the martial art of the Vile Little Demon?”
“That’s right. I have seen his martial arts before.”
At that, Chusaeng grew excited.
“See? Wasn’t I right? It really is the Vile Little Demon!”
“It is not the Vile Little Demon.”
“What are you saying now? Didn’t you say it was the real Hyeorang Finger?”
“I meant that the technique was that profound. It was not the work of the Vile Little Demon.”
“You seem to trust the Vile Little Demon far too much.”
“I do trust him.”
“That is exactly why I trust you even less. How can I trust someone who trusts the Vile Little Demon this much?”
“Whether you trust me or not is your freedom, but trust me this time.”
Chusaeng silently stared at Geom Mugeuk. He was a truly strange person. He said he had come from the Demon Cult, yet he did not feel like a demonic practitioner. He lacked that unique rough, cruel, sinister feeling of a man of the demonic path. Rather, though only a few days had passed since they had met, he had a peculiar power that somehow made one keep wanting to trust him.
‘If this man is evil, he will become a truly great evil.’
Hiding that thought, Chusaeng asked Geom Mugeuk.
“Then why did you tell me, knowing I would suspect you like this?”
“Because I should. Since we decided to join forces, there is nothing more foolish than acting while hiding one’s true thoughts. If we were going to do that, we should not have joined hands in the first place.”
Those words stabbed straight into Chusaeng’s heart, for he was hiding something.
“If you cannot sleep tonight either, use the method I taught you. Your complexion is much better.”
* * *
The next morning as well, Chusaeng came to see me.
“I slept well again yesterday. Perhaps you were right. The better I sleep, the more apologetic I feel toward those who died.”
“Think of the other disciples Sect Master Chu must protect. What can be done? The living must live on and move forward.”
It was a trite consolation, but perhaps it served as comfort nonetheless, for he rose with a somewhat easier expression.
“If there is anything inconvenient, tell me.”
“I will.”
Like someone with something to say, Chusaeng looked around the room here and there.
“How long are you going to stay here? I don’t think anything will change by you remaining like this.”
“Until you tell me the truth.”
“!”
Chusaeng flinched for an instant and turned toward me.
“Because I slept well and my head cleared, my thoughts about you changed too. I thought, there must be a reason that man is staying by my side. Someone so extraordinary would not be here for no reason.”
I spoke to him calmly.
“That’s right. I had noticed that you were hiding something from me.”
Around the time we first met, he would have flatly denied my words. But the Chusaeng of now did not.
“Then why do you not force me? With your martial arts, you could find out even if you had to torture me by force.”
“This may sound strange to you, but I will say it. My demonic path is a demonic path that eliminates the absolute evils of the world. My demonic path does not break tables, and my demonic path does not torture those who are not evildoers.”
“That truly is a strange thing to say.”
But his expression differed from his words. He was beginning to understand, at least a little, what kind of person I was.
“I believe the reason they chose you is because of whatever it is you are hiding right now. If my guess is correct, you will eventually die to them because of it. You may not believe it, but I want to save you.”
“You may not believe it… but I believe your words. There is no reason I should believe you, yet I keep wanting to, and that makes me hesitate even more. I wonder if I am being deceived by you. My father said never to trust another person’s words. That was his dying wish.”
Chusaeng looked up at the sky. What answer was his father giving him now?
He had done well until now, but this trial that had befallen him before he had even reached thirty was too difficult for him to overcome by his own strength.
Tell him to open his heart a little, for your son’s sake. I will make sure your son lives.
Did that thought of mine reach him?
After agonizing for a long while, Chusaeng revealed what was in his heart.
“After this matter occurred, I kept thinking of one method. I continued to agonize over whether I should tell you about it or not. My head told me I must never reveal the secret, but my intuition told me to reveal it. It told me to trust you.”
“I will contact the Hunan branch of Tongcheongak and tell them to change their records about you. His intuition is good, but he is not sharp. Like that.”
Chusaeng laughed. It was the laugh of a man who had now made up his mind.
“I was planning to ask one person for help.”
“Who is that?”
“I do not know who it is either.”
Chusaeng took out something he had kept carefully hanging from the cord of his necklace and showed it to me.
It was a coin cut exactly in half.
“It is an Eunwon Coin.”
An Eunwon Coin was a kind of token made by cutting a coin in half and giving it to a benefactor, so that even if a descendant later brought the coin, the favor would be repaid.
“They say the owner of this Eunwon Coin was injured and hovering between life and death when my father saved him. When he handed this down to me, my father repeatedly admonished me to use it only when my life and the fate of the clan depended on it.”
“Do you know who the owner of this coin is?”
Chusaeng shook his head.
“He did not tell me. I do not even know whether that person is still alive.”
“How is this Eunwon Coin used?”
“He said that if I went to any Yellow River Inn in the Central Plains and showed the coin to the innkeeper, someone would come looking for me.”
Using inns to make contact was a method used by our cult and the Murim Alliance. I thought the owner of the coin was likely someone who had once belonged to a large organization.
“Can anyone take it?”
“No. He said only our direct family line can use it. I am not saying this because I fear you might take mine from me. He truly told me that was the case.”
“I believe you. If that were not so, they would already have killed you and taken the Eunwon Coin.”
“Do you truly think he did such a thing because of this?”
“I cannot be certain, but that is my intuition.”
If, as I expected, this was what they were after, then they must be searching for the owner of this coin. Just who could it be?
“When the incident happened, why did you not use it immediately?”
Chusaeng let out a long sigh.
“I agonized over it. Truly, I agonized until my head felt as if it would burst. I was afraid. I was afraid that if I used this, I would become entangled with that man again. I was afraid that if revenge failed, he would come find us and annihilate our sect. I would rather everything simply pass by like this.”
Chusaeng lifted his head and looked at me.
“I believe you appearing before me was my father sending someone to rebuke me for such cowardice. I will stake my fate and that of my sect on you.”
* * *
Four days later.
We were sitting in a Yellow River Inn in Hunan. When we showed the coin to the innkeeper, he merely told us to wait here.
We waited without any plan.
Perhaps afraid that someone would come and leave without meeting him, Chusaeng sat in the inn all day long.
I shut myself in my room and trained in the Wind God Four Steps, then when mealtime came, I ate with Chusaeng, drank tea, and conversed with him.
I told him about the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. I also told him stories about famous martial artists, sects, and wandering warriors from various regions, and spoke of scenic wonders and delicious dishes throughout the Central Plains. I taught him about hunting and camping as well.
He marveled at my extensive knowledge. No matter what he asked, I was someone who could answer.
At one point, Chusaeng even said this.
“How can someone so young know all this? Are you perhaps… someone who has returned to youth?”
“Even if I had the chance, I would not do it. I will grow old together with my people and die.”
“I am curious what kind of people they are. Who surrounds a person like you? I want to see them.”
“You will regret it if you do.”
“Why?”
I answered with a smile instead. He would not say such things after being poked in the side by the Blood Heaven Blade Demon until he was bruised black and blue.
On the tenth day of waiting there like that, someone finally came looking for us.
The moment he saw him, Chusaeng was so startled he sprang to his feet.
And not only Chusaeng, but I, too, was shocked.
A man wearing a white mask was striding toward us.