Chapter 17

“Haah… hah….”
“Water… give me some water….”

Leaving Moyong Rin and Moyong Danho where they had collapsed, wrung out to the last drop, Gwang-seon got to his feet.

“Get some rest. I’ll go and find us some firewood.”

Moyong Danho watched him hum to himself as he gathered twigs from around the camp, and doubted his own eyes.

Hold on. Why is he the only one who’s perfectly fine?

They had run, quite literally, the whole day long. Apart from mealtimes there had barely been a rest at all, and it was not as though they had taken the running gently, either.

— Say so if it’s hard going. Let’s stop and rest a while.
— Who said anything about it being hard?! Danho, are you tired?
— Not a chance!

Any time the pace looked like slackening, Gwang-seon would needle them under his breath: ‘Worn out by just that much, are you?’ After that there was no slowing down. They could hardly lose a footrace in the lightness arts to some greenhorn who had only just been initiated into martial arts!

“…Rin.”
“What.”
“That Gwang-seon. Is it really true he’d never learned martial arts?”
“…”

Moyong Rin had known Gwang-seon before he had so much as learned the mind arts. But even she could not answer with any confidence.

“Is that even possible? How can anybody have that much internal energy? Do you think it makes any sense?”

The lightness arts are a martial art like any other, and they consume internal energy without exception. And yet Gwang-seon’s internal energy hardly ever showed any sign of running dry. Just when he seemed to be flagging at last, he would sit down in the shade a moment and meditate, and get up again as fresh as a new man.

Don’t tell me he ran a qi circulation in that time?

She thought about it a moment, then shook her head.

No, there’s no way.

How could anybody possibly run a qi circulation the way you’d roast beans over a flash of lightning¹? Even Moyong Bi and Uncle Baek Un-cheon, masters both, could not do such a thing.

“There are people now and then who are born with a great deal of internal energy, aren’t there. He must be one of those.”
“Damn it. Whichever way you cut it, that’s too much.”

Moyong Rin turned her eyes away from Danho, who was grumbling and tipping back his bamboo flask. Gwang-seon was already back with the firewood, striking a flint with practiced hands and coaxing up a flame. Beside him sat the enormous bundle he had hauled the whole way on his back.

That’s right. Gwang-seon had run that entire distance with that weight on him.

Just how much internal energy would a person have to be born with….

Moyong Rin stared for a while at Gwang-seon, that internal-energy millionaire, then got to her feet and went over to him.

“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like. We’ve got to eat dinner.”
“Dinner? We could just make do with fasting pills.”
“Pssh. You think one of those little things will fill you up? You have to eat properly.”

— Crackle, crackle—

The fire crept up the twigs and slowly drew itself up to its full height, and in the half-dark Gwang-seon took out the ingredients and cut them with quick, easy strokes.

“Can you even see? You’ll take a finger off doing that.”
“I could do this with my eyes shut.”
“What are you making?”
“It’s called Red Persimmon and Egg.² It’s a simple dish, so don’t worry. It’ll be done in no time.”
“I wasn’t worried.”

Gwang-seon hauled out the cast-iron pan he had insisted on bringing, settled it over the campfire, and threw the cut ingredients onto the hot iron.

— Shhhaaak—

“Render the scallion oil first. Then beat the eggs in a separate bowl and season them with salt, and the tomato— no, the red persimmon, fry that too and season it with soy sauce and sugar….”

Gwang-seon muttered away to himself, wholly absorbed in the cooking. Moyong Rin watched him, dazed.

His hands moving without a thought. The cast-iron pan swinging in a steady rhythm, as though it were dancing. The side of his face flushed red by the flames of the campfire.

— Grrrowl—

Gwang-seon saw Moyong Rin flinch, and snorted a laugh.

“Hungry?”
“Th-that wasn’t me!”
“Sure it wasn’t. Who else is here besides you, then.”
“It was probably your stomach.”
“Fair enough. It’d make no sense not to be hungry after running like that. It’s nearly done, so hold on a bit.”

He looked to be doing it all by halves, and yet somehow the dish was coming together. It was like magic.

“Sniff, sniff. Something smells good.”

The appetizing smell drew Moyong Danho away from the bedding he had been laying out, and he came over with his nose twitching too.

Gwang-seon portioned the finished dish out into bowls and handed them round.

“Here. I made plenty, so eat up, both of you.”

Hunger is the best sauce. The two of them buried their noses in their plates and wolfed it down.

“…!”
“How can it taste like this…?”

When they came to, they found they were licking their bowls, as if bewitched.

“Wait, already?”
“Danho! You stole mine, didn’t you!”
“What are you talking about? You’re the one who snuck some of mine, surely.”

The two of them were still squabbling when Gwang-seon broke into a broad smile.

“Well? Aren’t you glad I brought it all along?”

They could only nod back at him, dazed.

By the time we had eaten and cleared up, darkness had quietly settled in. We had run the whole day and were wrung out to begin with; our bellies were full, and as the world went dark all around us, sleep came drifting gently in.

There’s no strongman alive who can hold up eyelids heavy with sleep. We hurried to settle the night watch and turned in.

“I’ll take the first watch.”
“Wake me later.”

Moyong Danho had volunteered to bat first, so Moyong Rin and I left him to it and curled up in the makeshift beds laid out around the campfire. She was asleep almost at once, by the sound of her breathing, soft and even. I lay there a while listening to it thread through the crackle of the fire, and then I got up.

“What. Can’t sleep?”

Moyong Danho asked from his watch, tossing another twig into the flames. I sat up to answer.

“I’m sleepy, but the sleep won’t come.”
“I know the feeling.”

Was it from running qi circulations here and there through the day? Sleep was slow in coming tonight, of all nights.

— Crackle, crackle—

I was gazing quietly into the campfire when Moyong Danho spoke to me.

“Don’t look at the fire.”
“Hm?”
“Keep staring into a campfire and you stop being able to see into the dark. It makes it hard to deal with an enemy who comes at you out of it.”
“Ah. I know what you mean. You’re talking about dark adaptation.”
“Dark adaptation?”
“It’s the word for what happens when you go suddenly from somewhere bright into somewhere dark — at first you can’t see a thing, but bit by bit your eyes grow used to the dark and you start making out what’s around you….”

I sat with my back to the campfire, looking up at the stars, and talked about this and that with Moyong Danho.

“Remarkable. How do you come to know a thing like that?”
“It just sort of… came to me.”

Good question, though. Why did I know things like this? I’d hardly read a book in my life; if not for the boss I’d never have learned to read at all.

“But is it really all right that nobody came with us? Didn’t you say Moyong Rin was a direct-line descendant of the family head? What happens if something goes wrong?”
“Our Moyong Family is all the stricter about that sort of thing, precisely because of who she is.”
“No wonder they call you one of the Five Great Families….”

Standing watch is dull work. There was nothing much else to do, so we made small talk.

“Can I ask something I’ve been wondering about too?”
“Ask away.”
“Why did you join our team? I thought you didn’t much like me.”

Moyong Danho snorted a laugh.

“Straight to the point.”
“That’s me.”
“Honestly, at first I wasn’t glad to have you. The way the solemn grown-ups of the Moyong Family carried on over you like excited children. The way you alone became the exception to the Moyong Family’s strict rules. The way you tore about the place throwing the family’s ways into disorder. And I didn’t care for the sight of the gruff Great Hero Moyong Bi coddling you, either.”
“…”

Hearing it out of a third party’s mouth, I had to admit it had been a bit much.

I’d have hated me too.

Who is ever glad to see a stone come rolling in from outside? Especially a rolled-in stone that will not stop bouncing about the place.

“But after I’d had it out with you once, it all made sense. It was worth all the fuss.”
“Was it?”
“It was.”

Moyong Danho raised his head and looked up at the night sky.

“Did you know? They say every person has a star of their own.”

I followed his gaze up. Countless stars were looking down at us.

“You are most likely the most dazzling star among them. Whereas I am no more than one of the faint myriad stars.”
“…”
“Set beside you, blazing away up there, I may be a shabby, unremarkable thing… but I will be harder than any star of them all.”

A faint smile crossed Danho’s face.

“I came after you so that I could watch you being that. It would be inconvenient if the one who beat me went down over some trifle. I wanted to see with my own two eyes how far you go.”

Moyong Danho lowered his eyes to me. Was it from staring so long at the night sky? There was starlight lodged in them.

“Gwang-seon.”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re going to beat me, then be the strongest there is. To have lost for the first time to a man like that would be something to boast of, rather.”

Moyong Danho held out a fist.

“That’s a lot to put on a person.”

— Bump.

I knocked my fist lightly against Danho’s.

The third morning since we left Shenyang, where the Moyong Family has its seat.

“Is that Phoenix Mountain?”
“Mm.”

Far off stood a mountain peak with cloud draped about it like a scholar’s robe. It gave off a mysterious air, as though an immortal might well be living up there.

Moyong Danho had been gazing at it for a while when he spoke.

“Sooner than expected.”
“It was supposed to take a good three days to get here. Thanks to a certain someone.”

The two of them turned resentful eyes on me.

“Hang on. You’re saying it’s my fault?”

That was grossly unfair. Who had been the only one saying let’s stop and rest a while? And who had been the ones insisting they weren’t tired and tearing off ahead every time?

“Well, it was hard going, but it’s bought us some room in the schedule. We’ve food to spare, too. All’s well that ends well, isn’t it?”
“True enough. Let’s rest a while before we go up. It’s too misty to see much just now anyway.”

We picked a suitable spot, settled in and lit a fire for the meal. We had our roles divided up by now, and the preparations went along quite smoothly.

“What’s for breakfast today?”
“What do you think. Red Persimmon and Egg.”
“Again?”
“I’m happy with it. It’s good however often you eat it.”
“If you’ve complaints, you can do the cooking.”
“Tch.”

Still, since neither of them so much as mentioned fasting pills, they could not have been all that dissatisfied. The two of them were steadily acquiring a taste for my cooking, and it was a quiet pleasure to watch.

Maybe I’ll take them on as waiters when I open my own inn one day.

“Is this much salt about right?”
“I’ve cut the red persimmon. Is that thickness all right?”

The two of them sat either side of me and helped with my cooking, beating eggs, slicing ingredients. By now they got on with it without being told.

But the one who took hold of the wok at the end was always me.

— Fwoosh!

“That much fire out of a campfire?”
“Wow… I’ll grant him the cooking, at least. It makes you stand there staring.”
“And what difference does it make whether you grant it or not, Rin?”
“Ugh. It’s a figure of speech. Do you want to die, Moyong Danho?”
“No fighting. Fetch the bowls, it’s done.”

I served each of them their portion, and they blew on it and ate away with a will.

“Where’s the one who was complaining about Red Persimmon and Egg again?”
“When did I complain? I was only saying. And I can hardly not eat it after you’ve gone to the trouble.”
“You don’t want to eat it? You should have said sooner.”
“Get your hand away.”

Hm. Was it the good feeding? The pair who had been half dead on the first day were positively overflowing with energy.

“Well, Red Persimmon and Egg is the ultimate high-protein dish — it catches nutrition and flavor both at once. Nothing so strange about it, then.”
“…What?”
“Lycopene, the key component of the red persimmon, is fat-soluble, so when you fry it in oil or eat it together with fat the absorption rate in the body goes up by about four times or more. The fat in the egg yolk helps the lycopene absorb, and heating it raises the lycopene content itself as well. On top of that, eggs are rich enough in protein to be called a complete food, but they’re short on vitamin C and dietary fiber — and the red persimmon fills in exactly the part that’s missing. In a word, nutritionally speaking, the two of them are a perfect match.”
“What is he going on about now.”
“But how does he keep the eggs from breaking, running like that?”
“Now that you mention it, that is odd.”

And so we finished our meal amid such profitable conversation. Moyong Rin, whose turn it was to wash up today, went off grumbling with the bowls, and I had nothing much else to do, so I trailed along after her.

Moyong Rin glanced back at me, her hands in the cold stream.

“What. Come to help?”
“No.”
“Then why did you follow me?”
“Just… I was bored.”
“…”

I watched her grumble her way through the washing up, and when I happened to look up, the majestic shape of Phoenix Mountain filled my view.

“Yong-rin.”
“What.”
“So what exactly is a ruin site?”
“You picked the ruins without even knowing that?”
“Yep.”
“…”

Moyong Rin looked at me like I was beyond hope, and explained as she scrubbed away.

“Honestly? I don’t really know either. No — you’d have to say nobody properly knows about the ruins. Who made them. Why they’re there. Nobody knows.”
“Mm.”
“Some claim they’re a dwelling where immortals come down from heaven to stay a while. Others say they’re traces left by human beings of the distant past. There are people who say they’re the entrance to hell… there are all sorts of theories, but nobody knows which is the truth.”
“…”
“About all we do know is that dangerous monsters lurk around them, and that curious objects turn up nearby now and then. That’s why people keep going there, even knowing how dangerous it is.”
“Curious objects?”
“Mm. Things made of meteoric iron, that sort of thing. They’re only ever found at ruin sites, so they fetch a fair price.”
“Is there ever anything like a gun?”

Moyong Rin tilted her head.

“A gun? What’s a gun?”
“It’s shaped like a sickle. Like this….”

I sketched it out for her as best I could, and she shook her head.

“I don’t know it. At least, I’ve never heard of one.”
“Really?”
“How do you come to know about it, anyway?”
“Just… I saw it in a dream.”

I fudged it, and looked up at Phoenix Mountain.

“So the ruins are up there, then? What do they look like?”
“Mm. How to put it. To my eye… they look just like a door.”
“A door?”
“Mm. But nobody has ever gone inside. Whatever you do, it won’t open.”
“Why? If it won’t open, can’t you just break it down and go in?”

Moyong Rin gave a short laugh.

“You think nobody’s tried? The problem is that it won’t break.”
“There are plenty of masters about, aren’t there.”
“I’m telling you, all those masters threw themselves at it and couldn’t put a single scratch on it.”
“Really?”
“That’s what I’m saying. The Murim Alliance gathered people on a grand scale and gave it a try — and how do you think it turned out?”
“It failed?”
“Mm. A total, absolute failure. Every kind of master there is, the Alliance Leader among them, drove every ultimate technique they had into it all at once, and far from opening… hm? Now that I think about it, this cast-iron pan and the door at the ruins are made of much the same stuff, aren’t they? Where did you get this?”

She turned the silver wok this way and that in the water as she asked.

“I bought it off Old Hwang at the smithy.”
“Really?”
“Mm. He said he’d bought it from some merchant. Picked it up near a ruin site, apparently.”
“You’re telling me this was a relic? How strange.”

Moyong Rin looked the silver wok over with fresh eyes, then suddenly looked up at me.

“So you’ve been using this precious relic as a mere cooking implement?”
“A mere cooking implement? Call it a sacred cooking implement, if you please.”
“Unbelievable.”

She finished the washing, shook the water off with a couple of sharp flicks, gathered the dishes into the wok and stood up. She looked up at Phoenix Mountain.

“Anyway, from here on we’ll have to be on our guard. There’ll be monsters roaming about up there.”

I looked up at the mountain along with her, and something occurred to me.

“By the way. Why ‘Phoenix Mountain’?”
“There’s a story that it got the name because the shape of the mountain resembles a phoenix spreading its wings to take flight.”
“…That’s supposed to be a phoenix?”

However I looked at it, it didn’t look much like a phoenix….

“People do love attaching meanings to things. And there’s a legend handed down with it, for what it’s worth.”
“What legend?”
“I don’t remember it well. Something about a hero awakening at last from a long sleep in this place and beginning to spread his wings? Something along those lines, I think.”
“Hm. Very typical.”
“That’s what I said.”

We spent a while taking in the grand sweep of the mountain, and then went back.