Chapter 181

Chapter 181: All-Knowing (1)

The empty backyard of the inn.

It was morning, the sun having just risen, and Jeon Rahwa stood alone.

The cold morning air entered her lungs.

Martial Arts.

Mu and Gong.

Just a short while ago, these were two words she never had the leisure or reason to deeply contemplate.

Her family was annihilated when she was very young, so she lost the chance to learn martial arts.

After becoming a slave and being sold from place to place, she couldn’t even dream of such an opportunity, let alone have one.

She had vaguely resolved, ‘Someday, I will definitely master martial arts,’ but she never thought it would come so suddenly.

Mu and Gong.

As she repeatedly contemplated while deeply inhaling the morning air, she suddenly felt a sting on her left shoulder.

She slightly pulled down her collar to reveal her shoulder.

A clear brand was still seared there.

The character ‘Jeon,’ meaning money.

That character was a stigma showing that she had been ‘property.’

The reason the forgotten pain resurfaced was that, along with the words ‘martial arts,’ she thought of her former masters.

Strangely enough, every master she had met was a renowned master in the Jianghu.

Because of that, she sometimes, very rarely, got to hear fragments about martial arts from them.

‘Damn martial arts.’

The pain of that day, of being seared with a red-hot iron, came back vividly.

The smell of burning flesh, the moment she had to endure with her mouth covered, unable to scream, and fragments of the past rummaged through her mind.

・Gong in martial arts, you see. It’s not simply a fighting technique.

-Then what is it?

-It’s a way in which a person’s inner self and worldview are crudely revealed. It just often manifests as violence.

-It’s not simply ‘swinging a sword like this, punching like this,’ but a way of life in which a person’s constitution, personality, and enlightenment are dissolved. Even if they learn the same sword art, one person may use it righteously, while another uses it wickedly.

-Does that mean… martial arts ultimately reflect a person’s heart?

‘That man’ smiled strangely.

-You certainly are an interesting wench. Look over there. Do any of the other wenches care about this kind of bullshit? All they know is how to roll around in bed. Heh heh.

-Well, it doesn’t matter. Talking to you helps me sort things out. Anyway, you can think of it as the exact opposite of what you said.

-The opposite… what do you mean?

-The originator, the creator, the founder. Call it whatever you like. Since they all have ‘Ja’ in their title, let’s just call them ‘Jangja’. The process where the one learning reads and interprets the heart of the Jangja, dissolving it into their own worldview. The way it then bears fruit in the violent language of nature. That is martial arts.

-You mean the practitioner reads and reinterprets the creator’s heart? Is that not it? Does it mean the practitioner fuses the creator’s heart with the principles of nature and their own, then unleashes it?

-Hahaha. At times like this, it’s truly a shame. That you are merely a slave.

-A slave, and a woman at that. Had you not been born so, you would have had the makings of a great talent whose name would have spread across the nine provinces and eight wildernesses.

‘That man’ laughed for a long time after that.

Whether it was a sneer or just amusement, she couldn’t tell.

‘That man’ was her third master.

He was an inhuman bastard, but he had a surprisingly magnanimous side and enjoyed teaching her various things.

It seemed unlikely they would ever meet again.

‘Bukgung Ri.’

The inn had been in an uproar this morning.

First, the Iron God Gang, and now the Seven Star Immortal Society had disappeared.

She didn’t know the exact circumstances, but could it be related to Kim Rae-won?

He would tell her when he felt like it.

It didn’t matter if he didn’t.

Jeon Rahwa simply recalled the verses of the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art she had memorized until they were worn out yesterday.

「When cold reaches its extreme, fire is born.

In the silence of death, life resides.

Though snow covers a thousand li,

Within it, the sprout of yang germinates.

The yin cold becomes the shell,

The yang life becomes its core.」

As Kim Rae-won had briefly explained yesterday, it wasn’t a martial art that simply dealt with Yin Qi.

The name suggested a perfect pursuit of yin, but the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art was a martial art that sought the harmony of yin and yang.

It was a paradoxical martial art that sought heat within extreme cold and the birth of life within the destruction of death.

‘A process where the one learning reads and interprets the heart reflected by the creator, dissolving it into their own worldview.’

Bukgung Ri was a scoundrel, a lecher, the scum of the earth, but his words were worth remembering.

After all, he was one of the top masters in the Jianghu.

Right now, every person, everything, must be my teacher.

With her eyes closed, she naturally chewed on the remaining verses of the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art, again and again, mulling them over and over.

Fwoooosh~.

Every time she inhaled, her chest felt cold, and every time she exhaled, she felt a burning sensation as if her lungs were boiling, but she didn’t stop.

No, she immersed herself even more deeply.

It was proof that the basic circulation method of the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art that Kim Rae-won had taught her was the right path.

-When you breathe in, think of it as drinking moonlight. When you breathe out, as if you’re expelling turbid qi made of fire. You’ll feel a cold energy flowing through your meridians and a hot energy flowing along the eight meridians before being discharged through every pore in your body. It will be painful at first, but that’s proof that your body is changing.

His calm explanation echoed in her ears.

Jeon Rahwa kept her eyes closed and breathed slowly.

The air she inhaled through her nose descended to her Dantian.

And there, something cold began to gather.

It was very little, but it was a cold and silent energy, like the bottom of a lake in the dead of winter.

Hoo-.

Her exhaled breath was mixed with heat.

He had said it was the turbid qi leaving her body.

She truly felt her body becoming lighter.

‘So this is what they call internal energy.’

For her, martial arts were something she couldn’t even dream of, so to be accumulating internal energy so suddenly felt like a dream.

‘Kim Rae-won…’

He was her benefactor.

She remembered the day she first met him.

-Please, anyone, help me, help us. If you just save us, if you just save us… I’ll give you my all. My life, my soul, anything.

And so, a miracle happened.

The miracle named Kim Rae-won…

He subdued the Plum Blossom Fortress with overwhelming force and set her free.

And that wasn’t all.

He returned to her a life as a human being.

He made it so she could stay comfortably at this inn, and now he was even teaching her martial arts.

Moreover, the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art was at least a first-rate martial art.

‘No, that’s not it.’

It must be at least an advanced martial art.

Don’t they say that after three years at a village school, even a dog can recite poetry? She could feel it.

Though she had only memorized it and circulated it once, she could tell.

This was comparable to the secret arts of a great sect.

Jeon Rahwa clenched her fists tightly.

‘I must become a source of strength for him too.’

He was strong.

Yesterday, he single-handedly annihilated the Iron God Gang—she wasn’t entirely sure, but it was probably true.

Perhaps…

-Then it’s settled. Your grudge is my grudge. From the moment you first spoke to me.

Could it be that he eliminated the Seven Star Immortal Society as well?

If it was him, who was so incredibly strong, it might be possible.

But there was one thing.

He was too upright a person.

He was perfect as a wandering hero, but his personality made it easy to make enemies.

He couldn’t stand to see evil and couldn’t just pass by injustice.

Look at him now.

She didn’t know exactly what happened, but he went out for a simple ‘stroll’ and ended up wiping out the Iron God Gang.

‘Someday, that might put him in danger.’

Even a tiger can sometimes be taken down by a swarm of ants.

No matter how strong one is, there’s a limit to what one can do alone.

At such times, she might be of help.

Though her strength might only be that of a single fly.

‘I may not be an eagle, but I must at least become a crow and lend an arm.’

Jeon Rahwa focused on her training again.

A cold energy flowed along her meridians.

At first, it felt like being pricked by needles, but it gradually changed into something like a cool stream of water.

The stream was not yet a river, not even a ditch, perhaps not even a trickle of piss, but wouldn’t it gradually grow thicker?

A fly.

Yes, for now, let’s just become as strong as a fly.

After circulating her energy with the Twin Snow Yin Cold Art for about two hours, she had a late breakfast and left the inn.

It was for a task perhaps more important than practicing martial arts.

The one thing that the incredibly strong Kim Rae-won lacked.

Memory.

If she could just find it, she might be able to find out how he became so strong and why he was so obsessed with righteous deeds.

Western Road, 3rd District.

After leaving the inn, Jeon Rahwa walked along the complex alleyways there.

The streets, unlike yesterday, were in a state of unrest.

After the Iron God Gang and the Seven Star Immortal Society disappeared, large and small factions were fighting over territory.

Brawls broke out everywhere, and the smell of blood filled the air.

Yet, amidst this chaos, ordinary people were just trying to survive.

Merchants were still selling their goods, women were doing laundry, and children were playing, not on the main street of the Western Road, but in the winding alleys.

It was likely because the lawlessness that had continued for hundreds and thousands of years had become the law and order itself.

To put it nicely, the people of the River Capital were like rocks that did not waver even in a storm.

But to put it badly, they were like dust in a typhoon.

Swept here and there, they were carried along without a word, without a single thought, without any resistance.

Such were these beings.

They were just like she had been until a short while ago.

Jeon Rahwa resolved again.

She would not live like that anymore.

She would change.

If a storm brews, she would become the typhoon to blow it away.

If a typhoon strikes, she would become the storm to fight against it.

Of course, for now, the priority was the task for him, her own personal storm.

She navigated the twists and turns of the alleyways and arrived at an old teahouse.

All-Knowing.

The name on the plaque was strange for a teahouse, and the smell wafting from it was far from the fragrance of tea.

If anything, it was closer to a stench.

But it was a teahouse that wasn’t a teahouse, known to all who knew.

Clatter~.

As she opened the door and entered, the thick stench of beggars mixed with the fragrance of tea assailed her nose.

The acrid smell of tobacco smoke mingled with it, filling the interior with an even more unpleasant air.

“Welcome.”

A middle-aged beggar with a shaggy beard looked at her with a shabby appearance.

She couldn’t understand why they would bother pretending to be a teahouse if they were going to be like this.

Perhaps it was a sign of their confidence.

The Ten Great Sects.

This was, after all, the River Capital branch of the Great Beggars’ Sect, which boasted the largest number of members among them.

“What kind of tea?”

The leeringly smiling beggar scanned Jeon Rahwa from top to bottom.

A slight shiver went down her spine, but she didn’t show any sign of being flustered.

She had heard that being seen as weak in a place like this could lead directly to the path to the underworld.

The one who had taught her this was also Bukgung Ri.

She had learned of this place from him as well.

“Human Tea.”

It sounded like a rather frightening word at first, but the beggar, as if he had heard it often, asked another question nonchalantly.

“To drink? Or to buy?”

Here, ‘drink’ and ‘buy’ had entirely different meanings.

She already knew this from Bukgung Ri, so she answered immediately.

“I’ve come to buy.”

“The price is quite steep in times like these. Will you be alright?”

“Do you take silver coins?”

The beggar shook his head.

It meant that regular money was not accepted.

In other words, they only took martial currency.

“How much is it?”

“It depends on the type.”

“How much for a Special Grade?”

“Special Grade?”

The beggar’s gaze changed.

Special Grade, a slang term used only in this place.

Simply put, it meant a special person, or a top-tier master.

Perhaps… a cultivator.

“I’ll decide after hearing the name.”

Jeon Rahwa was about to take out her money but stopped, looked the beggar straight in the eye, and spoke clearly, one syllable at a time.

“Kim Rae-won.”

“Kim Rae-won…?”

“Yes, Kim Rae-won. How much… huh? Do you perhaps know the name?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Is there anyone who doesn’t know that name?”

Obvious? Anyone who doesn’t know?

“How can anyone in the Jianghu hear this name for the first time?”

“……?!”

The Great Beggars’ Sect knows Kim Rae-won?

‘Kim Rae-won… what are you? Who in the world are you?’