Episode 10: Cheongcheong, Awakening from Sleep.
The crescent moon rose brightly, like the eyes of Jin Sohyeon smiling wide.
Despite her younger sisters' attempts to dissuade her, Wang Suryeon, who still needed to be careful with her movements for several days, was nonetheless in attendance at the backyard gathering.
When Jang Ingeom informed them of Young Hero Peng Sowol's visit, Wang Suryeon's face turned red, and her younger sisters burst into laughter of admiration and delight.
"Wow~ So the Young Hero Peng Sowol really came? To think you caught his eye, our Sister Suryeon is really going to become one of the Martial Alliance's Five Great Beauties!"
Perhaps displeased with Jin Sohyeon's fuss, Wang Suryeon scolded her. Not only was it embarrassing, but Wang Suryeon had no desire to make a name for herself in such matters, and she knew that defeating Gwak Jagi had not been due to her true abilities. Had Gwak Jagi not been arrogant and had given his all, she would not have been able to win.
"The aftermath of the duel is truly spreading far and wide. But this is good news, isn't it? You can be happy, Sister."
Namgung Inhye comforted Wang Suryeon, whose face was growing redder by the moment. 'This is good news, so...' Puzzled, Jang Ingeom asked,
"Officer Namgung. Then is there bad news as well?"
"It's not necessarily that... but there is some rather burdensome news."
She said that after Wang Suryeon's duel yesterday, the members of the Phoenix Main Brigade participating in the Reserve Brigade's promotion examination had suddenly changed. According to custom, the five strongest from the Reserve Brigade would fight, while conversely, the five weakest from the Main Brigade would participate in the duel. However, the Main Brigade participants notified by the instructor today were top-ranked experts even within the Main Brigade.
"So because Officer Wang's strength exceeded expectations, they are breaking custom and fielding experts?"
"That seems to be it. They must mean that no matter what happens, they cannot stand to see us advance to the Main Brigade. That lower-ranked members of the Main Brigade would participate was merely custom, not a codified rule, so we cannot even protest."
Though Namgung Inhye explained calmly, her heart was heavier than anyone's. No one said it aloud, but everyone guessed. The one scheming to prevent them from advancing to the Main Brigade was undoubtedly Namgung Seolhyeon.
Perhaps sensing Namgung Inhye's apologetic heart, Jin Sohyeon began to clown around again to change the mood.
"Two of the five Main Brigade participants are those famous 'Martial Alliance's Five Great Beauties.' They're Sister Suryeon's potential rivals, so we absolutely have to win!"
Wang Suryeon, her face turning red again, raised her bandaged hand and covered Jin Sohyeon's mouth. Thanks to the two of them squirming and protesting, Namgung Inhye was able to smile.
Seeing them caring for one another and lightening the mood despite a matter that could not help but be worrisome, Jang Ingeom could not remain still either.
"Officer Ju. The energies clumped in your twelve meridians... I was wondering if you would let me assist you in dispersing them today..."
It was not that Jang Ingeom's heart had grown urgent simply because the opponents for the promotion duel had changed to stronger ones. From the start, he had intended to resolve Ju Cheongcheong's true energy problem once Wang Suryeon's duel was over.
Upon hearing Jang Ingeom's words, Wang Suryeon, Namgung Inhye, and Jin Sohyeon rejoiced as if it were their own affair, but for some reason, Ju Cheongcheong herself hesitated. Since it was not something Jang Ingeom could force or rush, he waited silently; instead, Wang Suryeon pinched Ju Cheongcheong's side as if telling her to answer quickly.
"Lady Jang. I am truly grateful that you wish to help, but... could we not postpone resolving my true energy until after the promotion duel?"
"I have already delayed it for several days for Officer Wang's duel, but delaying further does not seem like it would be a good thing. Is there a special reason you wish to postpone?"
"Although the energies in my body are turbid and corrupted, and they are gathered in my meridians rather than my qi vessels, so they cannot even be called internal energy... if I use the method taught by the Elder of the Taiji Sect, I can forcibly draw them into my qi vessels and use them for a moment. I am so lacking in skill that if I cannot use even this energy, I stand no chance of victory in the duel."
The old Elder of the Taiji Sect, who had pitied Ju Cheongcheong, had implanted a strand of internal energy and taught her this method, earnestly warning her to never use it unless her life was in imminent danger. The pure true energy of the Taiji Sect that the old Elder had implanted was a method that drew a portion of the turbid energy pooled in her meridians and forcibly pushed it into her qi vessels, but in the process of this forced injection, the qi vessels would be damaged, and her innate true qi would be contaminated as the turbid energy flowed through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. Moreover, since it did not even accumulate in the dantian, after at most two quarter-hours it would return to the meridians, and at that point even the meridians would be damaged, causing harm to the five viscera and six bowels. In short, it was a technique that gnawed away at one's lifespan, and furthermore, performing the technique brought tremendous pain.
Though he could not know the exact details, Jang Ingeom could roughly guess. She wanted to help her sisters, even at the cost of shortening her lifespan and enduring agony.
"Officer Ju. If you forcibly use turbid and chaotic energy to perform martial arts, it will likely greatly harm your health."
"I know, it's very bad. But I have to endure it."
When Ju Cheongcheong stubbornly insisted with a gloomy face, the officers erupted in an uproar. Needless to say, Wang Suryeon and Jin Sohyeon, and even the quiet-natured Namgung Inhye, wore angry expressions. They were women who could not be happy even if Ju Cheongcheong won the duel by harming her body. Watching them bicker—yes, no, you can, you can't—Jang Ingeom quickly opened his mouth.
"I should have explained this clearly from the start; I apologize. When I suggested resolving Officer Ju's true energy, I did not mean to destroy it or expel it from the body. I meant to purify the turbid energy and transform it into pure true energy, so you need not fight about this any longer."
"Huh? Is that possible?"
Ju Cheongcheong sat down cross-legged.
Jang Ingeom sat facing her, lightly placing his index and middle fingers on the pulse gates of both her wrists.
Knowing how delicate a matter it was to examine another person's internal energy, Wang Suryeon and the others watching tried not to make even a sound. Namgung Inhye, whose understanding of martial arts was relatively profound, felt her heart race simply from watching. She had never heard of anyone purifying another person's turbid energy, and it seemed like something even the Grand Patriarch of a noble clan—the strongest expert she knew—could not accomplish. Curiosity rose like clouds, but she had to endure it now. She must not disturb Jang Ingeom, who needed to concentrate.
Through Ju Cheongcheong's pulse gates, Jang Ingeom's true energy slowly flowed in. Along with it, internal observation began. Her condition was not different from what Jang Ingeom had surmised. Chaotic energies... the raw energy of unrefined miracle pills, the energy forcibly injected by unskilled experts, and yet another energy injected in an attempt to resolve those. Tangled turbid energies polluted one another, stagnating stickily in Ju Cheongcheong's meridians.
As Jang Ingeom's energy quietly submerged within, a very faint but pure strand of energy reacted and softly raised its head. It was the grateful energy that the Taiji Sect Elder had implanted, which slowly and carefully dissolved the turbid energies and pushed them out of her body whenever Ju Cheongcheong slept.
'You have worked hard all this time.'
The Taiji Sect's energy began to assimilate first. A drop of ink can dirty a bowl of clean water, but a drop of clean water cannot cause the opposite effect. Yet Jang Ingeom was accomplishing exactly that right now. Although the true energy Jang Ingeom injected was but a handful, it was a living, breathing thing with the power of purification, and its density and purity were incomparable to the turbid energy, which made it possible.
As he purified Ju Cheongcheong's turbid energy, an old memory suddenly surfaced. When he was about five years old, his First Master and Second Master had once fought fiercely over which internal energy cultivation method to teach him. The method the Second Master wished to teach guaranteed great success. Because he knew the proper path, he could guide him correctly, and the Third Master's medicinal pills and acupuncture would also help. Above all, the child's talent was extraordinary, so the Second Master was confident he could help him reach the stages of Three Transformations Gathering at the Crown and Five Qi Creating the Origin before the age of thirty, even if it meant sacrificing his own achievements. On the other hand, what the First Master wished to teach was ambiguous—even the First Master could not explain it clearly. When the Second Master asked if the child could achieve greatness, he had answered vaguely, 'If fate permits...'—from the Second Master's perspective, it was maddening. But in the end, the child followed the First Master's path. This was because the Third Master had sided with the First Master. The reason was that he wished to raise his disciple gently, and to have him walk the path of saving lives.
As the purified energy was guided into the Eight Extraordinary Meridians and began to circulate, Ju Cheongcheong felt comfortable for the first time since learning martial arts. She finally understood why Namgung Inhye practiced energy circulation whenever she had time. Vitality filled each and every cell, and she felt as if every corner of her blood vessels was being cleanly washed. The love and resentment she had held for her father—which she had been unable to blame him for because she knew it had been for her sake—was also purified along with the turbid energy.
When nearly two sichen had passed, Jang Ingeom quietly withdrew his hands and stood up, and then Ju Cheongcheong opened her eyes. They had always been half-closed, but this time they were opened wide, and somehow her gaze seemed to shine with clarity.
"Wow, was Sister Cheongcheong always this pretty?"
It was Jin Sohyeon's jest meant to cheer up the exhausted Ju Cheongcheong, but it wasn't wrong. The internal changes had begun to manifest externally.
"From now on, you will not have to force yourself to sleep."
His words were so calm, though he could have boasted a little, and tears welled up in her clear eyes.
Seeing Ju Cheongcheong's tears, moisture also appeared in Wang Suryeon and Namgung Inhye's eyes, so once again Jin Sohyeon stepped forward to change the mood.
"Lady Jang, mister. Don't you have anything for me too?"
+++
It wasn't only the Reserve Brigade that had gathered because of the promotion examination.
In the tea room of the hall used by the Phoenix Main Brigade, the five women scheduled to duel with the Reserve Brigade had gathered to talk. The change of participants had been unexpected for them as well.
"Isn't it customary for the low-ranked ones to fight in the duels against the Reserve Brigade? Why are they suddenly telling us to participate?"
Eon Soso, the eldest daughter of the Jinju Eon Clan Patriarch, voiced her complaints while savoring the fragrance of Tieguanyin tea. Although her clan could not be counted among the Five Great Noble Clans, it could easily claim a place among the Ten Great Noble Clans, and having been born into such privilege and treated with deference her whole life, being told to draw her sword for the sake of a Reserve Brigade's promotion examination was a blow to her pride.
"It's not a difficult matter, so what is there to worry about? We train every day without any chance to show our progress, so this is a good thing, I suppose. This is our chance to display our abilities before the people of the Alliance."
Hwang Manok of the Hainan Sword Faction spoke as if she welcomed the opportunity, and Eon Soso's brows furrowed.
"If this were an occasion arranged with good intentions, I would gladly step forward too... but somehow I feel as if we are being played by someone's schemes..."
As Eon Soso spoke while looking at her with a frown, Namgung Seolhyeon could not remain silent either.
"Soso, what do you mean by that? Are you saying I pulled strings to change the participants? I didn't know I had that much influence."
"Hmph, even if they picked five low-ranked ones, you would be among them, so you have no complaints. No, but why are you selected among the five top-ranked? I truly cannot understand..."
Just as Eon Soso and Namgung Seolhyeon were about to continue their heated exchange, Ak Socheon, who had been quietly drinking tea, cut in.
"Sister Soso, Sister Seolhyeon, please stop. It is true that this does not match the customs up until now, but selecting participants is within the authority of the Leader and the instructors, so we need not interfere. We need only prepare well ourselves and judge whether the reserve members truly have the skill to enter the Main Brigade."
Though Ak Socheon was a year younger than Eon Soso and Namgung Seolhyeon, her words carried weight. One could not ignore her background as the direct disciple of the Mount Hua Sect Leader, but more than anything, it was because she was renowned as one of the Martial Alliance's Five Great Beauties and her swordsmanship was acknowledged as the finest in the Phoenix Brigade.
"Well, if that is Socheon's opinion... but do we even need to prepare deliberately? The level of the Reserve Brigade is obvious. That's why having the lower-ranked members of the Main Brigade face them would be the perfect match..."
Though agreeing with Ak Socheon's words, Eon Soso continued to glare at Namgung Seolhyeon as if something still dissatisfied her. Just as Namgung Seolhyeon was about to fire back a sharp retort at the woman from the Jinju Eon Clan who dared provoke her—the precious daughter of the Namgung family—I Nanyak of the Wushan Maiden Palace, another famous name among the Five Great Beauties, spoke first.
"Soso. I watched the Reserve Brigade's Wang Suryeon's duel yesterday. If the level of the Reserve Brigade we must face this time is all like Wang Suryeon, it will not be an easy match. If we don't want to be humiliated, it is right that we do our best, as Socheon said."
"Sister Nanyak, though I did not watch the duel myself, I heard that Wang Suryeon won because she launched a despicable ambush while the Young Hero Gwak Jagi was off guard. Hmph, for a Reserve Brigade member to drag our Main Brigade's name through the mud with such cowardly acts..."
"The duel had already begun and they were exchanging swords; how can you call that a cowardly ambush? It was a peculiar sword that made even my heart race as I watched, so Soso, it would be best not to let your guard down."
"Sister Soso, you need neither let your guard down nor feel nervous about Wang Suryeon. I, Ak Socheon, will be the one to face Wang Suryeon."
Following I Nanyak's warning, when Ak Socheon designated Wang Suryeon as her own opponent, Eon Soso finally realized the seriousness of the matter. There had to be a reason why Ak Socheon and I Nanyak—respectively the strongest in the Phoenix Brigade and a renowned rising star of the martial world—were reacting like this.
As the officers showed their readiness to earnestly face the confrontation, a cold smile spread across Namgung Seolhyeon's lips.