Chapter 9

“No way! There’s no way that’s Sword Qi Forming Gang!”
“Now, now, I’m telling you it’s true. Can’t you tell just from looking at that possessed wok-work?”
“Ah, even so — him, a peerless master of the culinary world…? He doesn’t look much older than me.”

The kitchen was in an uproar, the spectators cheering. Not that it felt bad. Who in the world dislikes being praised? They say praise will make even a whale dance.¹ Never mind a mere waiter.

“Heh heh. Our Gwang-seon takes after me, you see — cooking’s the one thing he’s an absolute wonder at.”
“Are you good at cooking too, sir?”
“Of course! Who do you suppose our Gwang-seon learned his cooking from?”

At some point the boss had come shuffling out to wedge himself into the other two’s conversation, and now he stood watching me cook with a fond eye, for all the world as though he were the master who had taught me.

Bullshit.

Not that he’s exactly wrong. The boss burned every last thing he cooked until I finally lost patience and took up the wok myself. Cunningly mixing a lie in with the truth: that might well be something I learned from our boss. It’s a survival skill. Nothing but that tongue has kept our boss an innkeeper in a place crawling with black-path thugs.

“Wow, wow. Then could you cook something for me sometime, sir?”
“I’d love to make you something this very minute, but. With my leg the way it is.”
“Ah….”

I had no idea what he had hauled himself all the way out here for. A man with a bad leg, no less. At his age the bones don’t knit so easily any more.

Whatever idle nonsense was running through my head, my hands went on cooking without so much as a hitch. I dusted the trimmed chicken with a thin coat of lotus-root starch, seared it in the wok almost as though frying it, then turned it out into a bowl. Into the oil left behind went dark soy sauce, vinegar, honey and water, all measured by eye, then minced garlic, scallion and chili to send the sharp, spicy aroma roaring up. I waited for the sauce to bubble down and thicken, and in went the fried chicken I had set aside, tossed through in an instant.

— Clatter, clatter—

— Fwoooosh—

“Oooh!”
“Never fails to amaze, no matter how many times you see it.”
“Hoo. Would you look at the hands on that kid.”

The onlookers marveled at my possessed wok-work. Shaking the wok with one hand, I reached for the liquor with the other.

“Big Bro Un-cheon.”
“Here.”

The final highlight. I splashed the liquor round the wok to kill the gaminess.

— Ssssssss—

— Fwoooosh!

“Ooooooh!”

Plate it up nice and pretty, and done! The kitchen filled with the mouth-watering smell of kkanpunggi.

“There you go. Dig in.”

The moment I set it down on the table, the three of them promptly laid out spoons and chopsticks and took their seats.

“That’s the taste!”
“Kuuh…. That makes a man want a drink.”

The boss and Big Bro Un-cheon savored the kkanpunggi with their eyes shut, exclaiming over it again and again. Watching the two of them, Moyong Rin carefully lifted a steaming piece to her mouth.

— Crunch—

“…!”

Moyong Rin’s eyes went round.

Mm. A success.

The sound alone told me it had come out right. Crisp outside, juicy inside. That is the one truth of kkanpunggi.

“Well? Any good?”

Moyong Rin nodded blankly at the question, chewed, swallowed, and then murmured in a voice thick with tears.

“It’s good….”
“Glad to hear it.”

For a cook, there is no higher praise.

I watched my customers fall on the dish in a frenzy, then went back to the fire with a warm swell of pride. With the chicken innards I had set aside I knocked together something to go with the drink, handed it to Big Bro Un-cheon, and sat down at the table myself. In that short time the kkanpunggi had shrunk by half. I joined the battle late and filled my stomach.

“Hoo… the drink goes down a treat.”
“Ahem. Hem, hem.”
“Ah — would our boss care for a cup as well?”
“Heh heh, well now. You really shouldn’t….”
“Pops!”

The boss jumped out of his skin.

“A man with an injury, drinking? Do you want the wound to go bad? The physician told you no liquor.”
“B-but surely just the one cup….”
“Desist!”
“All right. All right, I said. Honestly. Who does that kid take after….”

The boss was still angling to sneak a drink. I gave him a hard look and turned to Big Bro Un-cheon.

“Big Bro Un-cheon! Don’t give our boss any liquor!”

Big Bro Un-cheon set the bottle he had half-raised back down and shrugged.

“Our master says it isn’t allowed.”

I finished my own meal with one eye on the boss, who had fallen to poking glumly at the chicken-innard dish. Moyong Rin watched us with wondering eyes, though of course that small mouth never once stopped working at the kkanpunggi.

When the great sprawl of a dinner was over, she rose quietly from her seat.

“Uncle Un-cheon, sir. I’ll be going now.”
“Ah, right. It’s got late. Off you go.”
“Get home safe, Miss Moyong.”

Moyong Rin made a punctilious bow and left the house. I followed her out to see her off.

Halfway across the yard she stopped and turned round, and then she looked at me as if I were some kind of monster.

“You… what are you? What are you that you cook like that?”

…That’s a compliment, right?

Let’s just take it as one. I stared at the corner of Moyong Rin’s mouth.

“What? Have I got something on me?”
“Yep.”

She had eaten so frantically that kkanpunggi sauce was spattered all round her mouth. I handed the flustered girl a handkerchief.

“Here.”

She wiped her mouth with it and mumbled, her face gone red.

“I’ll… wash this and give it back.”
“Sure.”
“And… there’s something I should tell you.”
“What?”

Moyong Rin hesitated a moment, then spoke like someone who had made up her mind.

“The other kids have got it in for you.”
“Why? Did I do something wrong?”
“What do you think. It’s because you have Father’s attention all to yourself. Did you know our father is terribly sparing with his praise? He barely even smiles in front of us. He’s an extremely strict man.”
“…Is he?”

Was he really like that?

I tilted my head, calling up the face of the Moyong family head beaming warmly at me.

Then again.

He is a bit frightening when his face goes blank. Come to think of it, I was pretty cowed myself when we first met.

“Do you know there’s an Intra-Family Sparring Tournament next week?”
“An Intra-Family Sparring Tournament?”
“Think of it as a sparring tournament held inside the family. It’s a chance to show off what you’ve achieved and to trade martial learning with one another. The grown-ups of the family and the elders attend, and Father too — it’s an important occasion.”
“…”
“Father will enter you because you’ve only just taken up martial arts — he means it lightly, as a chance to broaden your horizons by watching. The other kids won’t see it that way, of course.”

Moyong Rin looked me in the eye, her face serious.

“Be careful.”

She had no particular need to tell me any of that. Playing dumb would have cost her nothing at all. Moyong Rin was showing me goodwill, and goodwill ought to be repaid with goodwill.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

I said it with a grin.

“Thanks for telling me.”
“…Hmph. A warrior doesn’t say thank you. Doesn’t say sorry, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes you look weak!”
“Yeah? Well, I want to say it.”
“Suit yourself. Idiot.”

Moyong Rin spun on her heel, went pattering off, and vanished over the wall. I watched her go, then muttered.

“…Seriously, why does nobody around here use the gate?”

The next day.

“Are you keeping up your qi circulation whenever you get the chance?”
“Yes, sir.”

Whenever I had a spare moment I sat cross-legged and ran a qi circulation. All I had to do was draw the qi out of my dantian and carry it as far as the entrance, and it would finish one full circulation by itself, so there was nothing difficult about it. Other people sit for hours groaning until their legs cramp just to manage one, while I finish mine in a flash, in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea. It was cheating, plain and simple.

It’d be nice if I could run it while I sleep, too.

That really would be auto-hunting. Stand and you want to sit, sit and you want to lie down, lie down and you want to sleep. There is no end to a man’s greed. All the more so in my case, since mine was tied directly to my life.

Sooner or later the Bursting Fist Demon’s acquaintances will come looking for me.

From what I had half heard, he was a high-ranking figure in the Demonic Cult.

Surely people from the Demonic Cult aren’t going to come after me?

The thought sent gooseflesh prickling up my spine. I cannot afford to waste even the hours I spend asleep.

I’ll have to find a way sooner or later.

And while I was making that resolution,

my martial arts teacher Moyong Bi’s lesson began.

“Good. Now that you’ve learned the mind arts — the method for building internal energy — it’s time to learn how to put the internal energy settled inside your body to use.”

As always, Big Bro Un-cheon was watching from a little way off like the layabout he is.

“How do I put it to use, Teacher Yong-bi?”
“Good question. You can run it into your arms and legs to raise your reaction speed and your strength, or concentrate it in your eyes to sharpen your sight, or pour it into a sword the way I showed you before, or… no, hold on. Why is it you call me Teacher Yong-bi?”
“Well, ‘Teacher Bi’ sounds a bit strange, doesn’t it.”
“Then call me Teacher Moyong Bi.”
“That has no warmth to it at all.”
“…Suit yourself.”

Muttering ‘Strange kid…’ under his breath, Moyong Bi gave the demonstration himself. He bent his knees and sprang straight up on the spot. Have you ever seen a man leap like a frog? Moyong Bi shot up high enough to clear even that tall wall in a single bound.

“Oooh!”

Moyong Bi came down as lightly as a feather. When I clapped, he laughed.

“Like that. There are many methods. But it isn’t simply a matter of reinforcing your movements with internal energy and leaving it there. Misjudge the force and you can snap your own arms and legs or rupture your organs. Focus and control are what matter. The right place, the right degree. When you put force in, put it in properly; when you take it out, take it out. Supple, and smooth.”
“Mm. I think I see what you mean.”
“Do you? Then let’s see whether you really understood.”

Moyong Bi shot a fist out without warning.

— Whoosh—

The sound of splitting air rang out, murderous. I dodged in a blind panic.

“Oh.”
“Wh-what was that all of a sudden?”

Not that he cared. Moyong Bi looked over at Big Bro Un-cheon.

“So it’s true?”
“Told you. That kid’s no ordinary kid. You can go harder.”
“Can I now?”

— Whooosh—

This time a kick came flying. It came in cunningly at the midsection, awkward to duck under.

“Aaagh!”

I kicked off the ground with everything I had and jumped. In an instant the ground fell away beneath me, and I rose clean past the height of Moyong Bi’s eyes.

“…Huh?”

The sudden way my whole field of view had opened up threw me for a second.

“Uwaaaah!”

— Thud!

I flailed my arms and legs in mid-air and came down in the least dignified way possible.

“Nngh….”

As I lay there groaning, a face shoved its way into a field of vision that had held nothing but blue sky.

“That’s exactly it.”
“…Sorry?”
“What you just used. That is internal energy.”

I used internal energy?

Come to think of it, when I had leapt with all my strength without meaning to,

the cool, clear energy in my dantian had slipped out and flowed down into my legs. It had happened so fast that only now, going back over it carefully, could I tell.

“Has this happened before?”
“No. This is the first time.”
“The first time, and you can draw and release internal energy as naturally as that? It defies explanation.”

Moyong Bi stroked his chin and thought for a moment, then looked down at me where I lay.

“Gwang-seon.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“In my experience, there is nothing like a lesson in actual combat for picking up the use of internal energy naturally.”
“…Sorry?”

Moyong Bi raised his foot. A shadow fell across my head.

“Now. Try dodging my attacks. Land so much as a fingertip on me and today’s lesson ends right here.”

Moyong Bi’s foot came down like a hammer.

“Aaagh!”

— Thud!

I rolled clear of the hammer-foot and shot upright, then checked the spot where my head had been.

Crrrack— A fissure had opened across it.

A chill. Gooseflesh rose all over my body.

No question about it.

If I had just lain there gawping, my head would have burst like a ripe watermelon.

These crazy murim warrior bastards!

Moyong Bi gave me no time to breathe. His fists and kicks came down like a storm.

“Wait! Wait a second!”
“Learn this while you have the chance. An enemy will not wait just because you shout ‘wait’.”

I twisted my whole body clear by a hair, and got a question out.

“Shouldn’t you teach me the basics first — how to dodge, how to block, that sort of thing?”

Isn’t martial arts training normally supposed to be someone demonstrating the movements and me copying them? Not just laying into me like this?

“Normally, yes. But you’re not normal.”
“What’s that supposed to—!”
“Ho. You’ve breath to spare for talking, I see. I can push it up a little.”

There is no reasoning with him!

I sprang back to open up the distance, then glared with my eyes wide. At that the cool, clear energy surged up along the meridian path it travels during a circulation and made for my eyes. My vision seemed to fly open for an instant, and suddenly every one of Moyong Bi’s movements registered. Trajectories, I suppose you would call them? The paths his swinging arms and legs traced stood out as vividly as if someone had laid them down in ink.

Dodge first, think later!

I dropped low and slipped the incoming fist. Next came a kick aimed at my legs. I hopped over that, and as I did, a thought came.

If I’d bent down just a little further, dodging the follow-up kick would have been easier.

The same goes for right now. Had I jumped a little lower to dodge, I would have had that much more room to slip the shoulder-shove that came after.

Just a little closer to the edge.

Once more an ink line drew itself through the empty air. Instead of taking fright and pulling wide to dodge, I stepped in.

— Whooosh—

Moyong Bi’s fist grazed past my ear. I saw his eyes widen slightly. Everything in me drew taut. I copied the punch he had been throwing.

Was it like this?

The instant I clenched the fist I had hauled back with all my strength, the cool, clear energy came out of my dantian and flowed of its own accord into my legs, my waist, my arm.

— Thud—

I stepped forward and let my arm extend naturally with it. Like a bowstring hauled taut and loosed, the fist fired.

— Whoooosh—

With a sound of rushing wind my fist flew at Moyong Bi. His eyes went wide at the sight of it arriving right in front of his nose.

— Whump!

The two warriors of the Demonic Cult carried the Bursting Fist Demon’s body out of the cave and moved it to a sunny spot. They laid branches and fallen leaves beneath it and set it alight, giving him a funeral of sorts, plain as it was.

“You useless fool.”
“…”
“The one who looked likeliest to go last goes first. We will settle your score for you, so close your eyes in peace.”

— Crackle, crackle—

One of the warriors watched the body burn in silence for a good while, then spoke in a deliberately light tone. He was a man with a long, thin saber slung across his back.

“I mean to start by turning over the escort bureaus nearby². And you?”

The man with the patch over one eye answered in a heavy tone.

“There’s word that the waiter came out of the Hao Sect.”
“Is that so.”

The man with the saber gave the Bursting Fist Demon one last glance and left.

Muttering, quietly, as he went.

“…I don’t like it.”

But as he muttered it, a thin smile had bloomed at the corner of his mouth.

The man who watched him go with his one remaining eye muttered quietly to himself.

Whoever it is, they’re not going to get a clean death.

The man with the eyepatch turned suddenly to study the dead face of the Bursting Fist Demon, chest punched clean through. Whatever he had seen in the moment of his death, the eyes were still wide open. Though of course, the eyeballs themselves had long since been dug out by animals.

“Fist Demon. What in the world did you see?”

But the dead have nothing to say.

The one-eyed warrior of the Demonic Cult kept his place until the Bursting Fist Demon’s huge frame had turned to ash.