“You’re telling me you jumped the line?”

Cheongak stared at Cheonjeong, dumbfounded.

Eunsong looked amused at his two disciples bickering.

“How could you, Head Senior! I trusted you!”

“No, Cheongak. That’s not—”

“Not what? Not what! If you’ve still got something to say, hurry up and make excuses, yeah? We were supposed to spar today!”

Cheongak fumed at Cheon Soyak and Cheonjeong in turn.

Cheon Soyak glanced sidelong at Cheonjeong.

He couldn’t be the only Third Generation who’d seen her grand circulation.

Cheongak had surely felt the itch to test himself.

Cheonjeong had probably held him back, given that temper of his.

Eunsong let the two of them squabble and instead watched Cheon Soyak’s complexion.

She looked fine—surprisingly so.

The youngest disciple he remembered had been the sort to cough blood the moment she tried to draw up inner power properly.

“Soyak.”

“Yes, Master.”

She couldn’t help the smile that rose at that single word.

“Is your stomach all right? If you stirred your inner power, you must have hurt inside.”

“I’m all right.”

At that, Cheonjeong’s face went pale.

“What?”

“Be careful. Your youngest junior has had such a long break from training that her dantian has stiffened; if she rouses too much inner power, it could be dangerous.”

“Good grief. B—but I definitely saw Sword Light!”

“…Sword Light?”

Now it was Eunsong’s turn to go pale.

Given the condition of Cheon Soyak’s body as he remembered it…

It was a miracle she was even conscious.

“Please don’t worry too much.”

“How could I not worry! I tended you myself when your inner power had hardened in your dantian and your meridians were all ravaged!”

Eunsong flushed red, then blue.

“I’m fine. I reconciled with it.”

“…What did you say?”

Reconciled with… what?

Her inner power?

Eunsong didn’t understand what Cheon Soyak meant.

He beckoned her over.

She trotted up; he rolled back her sleeve and took her wrist.

…Normal.

Her color was normal.

Not a trace of blood at the lips, not even a cold sweat.

Inner power coursed steadily through her small frame, and her meridians were clearly not damaged.

“How—”

Eunsong asked her several times over.

But the only answer he got was “I reconciled with it.”

It was maddening, yet even the child looked at a loss for how to explain it.

“Fine… perhaps you had some realization.”

“Something like that.”

Eunsong gave up on pressing further.

Cheon Soyak bowed her head to a master willing to let it go.

He had every right to probe and demand an account.

It was suspicious and strange enough.

But he stopped there.

Cheongak, however, did not stop—

not the questioning, but—

“You.”

“Yes, senior?”

“Let’s duel.”

—he didn’t stop the spar.

Soyak hesitated, then shook her head.

Cheongak’s eyes narrowed to a squint.

“Why not? Why? So Head Senior gets to be a senior, and I’m not a senior too?!”

“That’s not it…”

“Then! Then what!”

Watching him fuss like a child was, in its way, entertaining.

It even reminded her of herself—

of herself before her father’s head fell.

Cheon Soyak watched Cheongak’s agitation for a moment, then spoke.

“I’m… a little tired.”

“Huh?”

It wasn’t her body that was tired.

It was her heart.

This was Mount Hua, yes.

Cheonjeong had said he’d treat her as his junior regardless of her birth or past.

Cheon Soyak had said she would believe him—

—but her heart hadn’t.

She was struggling to believe, and because she struggled, it was still hard.

His words had rippled through her like a stone cast into a pond.

“…Are you all right?”

The one who noticed the trembling in her eyes was Head Senior.

At Cheonjeong’s worried look, Soyak only nodded.

“I’m… all right.”

“If it’s hard, go in and rest.”

Even her master, Eunsong, let it pass.

He was accounting, to a degree, for her circumstances.

She had only just arrived.

Her life was full of wounds.

Among the Third Generation with the Cheon generation-name, she was the best.

It was still time to settle her heart.

But the world was not so accommodating.

“Eunsong, are you here?”

Bang, bang. Someone pounded on the gate—

the gate to the small lodge fronting the courtyard where Eunsong was staying.

“Who’s making such a racket at daybreak…”

Eunsong let out a long sigh.

Come to think of it, Soyak had made quite a splash at the induction yesterday.

Of course the bites would start coming.

“Cheonjeong.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Go open the door.”

From the voice alone, Eunsong knew which senior brother had come—

the Head Senior among them, the one who led the Second Generation:

Eternal Bloom Sword, Eun Byeok.

Cheonjeong knew his voice as well.

The Byeok in Eun Byeok was the byeok in “thunderclap”—

a man whose first impression struck like lightning.

When the door opened, in strode a man so tall he made Eunsong look small.

“Have you been well, my junior?”

“…I don’t know when you ever worried so much about me, but yes.”

Eunsong rose to his feet

and waved the Third Generation back with a flick of his hand—

telling them to withdraw.

But Eun Byeok did not allow it.

“Hey now. I hear you took in a cute new disciple?”

“She won’t suit your eye, senior. She’s lacking.”

“Is that so?”

Two youths stepped in behind the towering Eun Byeok, both about Cheongak’s height.

They were his Third Generation disciples.

“You’ve always swept up the best talents, Eunsong.”

“That’s…”

One was a boy, the other a girl.

Both had fire in their eyes.

From the corner of the inner yard, Soyak watched in silence.

She saw Cheongak labor to avoid their gazes.

“Ah! Cheongak! There you are?”

“Ch—Cheonhwa? I—I’m sick today, so…”

“So you lie to your senior sister now?”

“Cheonju… senior, that’s not…”

He seemed in quite a bind.

Cheon Soyak tilted her head.

Even at a glance, she didn’t think Cheongak’s skill fell below either of them.

So why avoid them?

Only after seeing their eyes did she understand—

that vicious jealousy,

that murderous edge aimed at Cheongak.

“Our junior’s way stronger than me! Right? You’ll take anything we throw at you, yeah?”

“Still, don’t bully him too much, Cheonhwa.”

“Okay, senior! I’ll only bully him a little!”

Cheongak couldn’t budge in front of a senior brother and senior sister who meant to make a toy of him—

an upper-and-lower born of the distribution of power.

At last, Eunsong stepped in.

“Your disciples are more than excellent enough, senior. Let’s not torment Cheongak.”

“More than excellent? You could see it that way, but…”

Eun Byeok cast a cold look at Cheonju and Cheonhwa—

cold enough that their hair seemed to stand on end.

“They aren’t the best.”

“The Dao isn’t about obsession with ‘the best’—”

“Isn’t it?”

“…It isn’t.”

Then Eun Byeok’s gaze turned to Soyak, standing in the corner.

A look sticky and deep with interest.

Cheon Soyak hunched her small body without thinking.

A spark lit in Eun Byeok’s eyes.

His sight was keen.

He couldn’t gauge destiny from a glance—

but he could tell at least this much:

that Soyak had crossed a wall and reached Apex.

“For someone who says such things, you always gather only the finest.”

“That child is…”

“Hand her over.”

“…What?”

Eunsong looked up at him squarely—

his face a mix of surprise, bafflement, and a touch of irritation.

“If the Dao isn’t fixation on the best, why do you fixate on the best disciple?”

“The bond between master and disciple is like that of parent and child.”

“I don’t care about that. Hand her over.”

At that, Cheonhwa and Cheonju’s attention swung to Soyak.

“You stronger than Cheongak?”

“Is that true?”

“…I only entered today.”

Cheon Soyak bowed politely and looked away.

But the two didn’t know how to give up.

They scampered over and began inspecting her from head to toe.

“Heh. Small and plain.”

“Junior. Say things like that and you’ll hurt her.”

“Why, senior? It’s true.”

They tugged her hair.

Yanked her sleeve.

Poked her cheek and grabbed her wrist.

Soyak let them toy with her without resistance.

“…Tch.”

“Weird. She doesn’t fight back. Hey, are you stupid?”

Cheonhwa cocked her head, puzzled.

Cheon Soyak answered in a low voice.

“…I can’t strike a senior brother or senior sister.”

“What?”

Cheonhwa blinked—then burst into peals of laughter.

Cheonju laughed too, as if it were absurd.

“What’s so funny?”

“Ah… what was your name again?”

“Cheon Soyak.”

Cheonju snickered and clamped a hand on Soyak’s shoulder.

No—he wasn’t holding it.

He was pinning it down.

“…Ah.”

His thumb dug into the hollow near her collarbone.

Pain drew a crease between Soyak’s brows.

She couldn’t strike Cheonju here; at a loss, she looked to Eunsong.

Eunsong sighed.

“Senior, call your pupils off their games.”

“Why would I?”

“Is that so? Soyak. Protect yourself.”

It happened in that instant.

Soyak’s small, slender hand moved to her waist.

The sight of it—chilling to the marrow—made even Cheonju and Cheonhwa leap back.

“W—were you about to draw your sword!?”

“I—I’m your senior sister! Your senior sister!”

Cheon Soyak slowly straightened her small body.

She set to rights the clothes disheveled by pushing and pulling,

retied her hair,

and placed her left hand on the sword’s guard.

“I would ask the two of you to be careful.”

Her eyes remained black as she looked at Cheonju and Cheonhwa—

black and so empty nothing could be read within.

“I haven’t learned striking or seizing techniques yet. Other than the sword, I don’t know how to use anything.”

If the order was to protect herself, the only thing she knew how to use was a sword.

Veins stood in Cheonju’s and Cheonhwa’s necks—

but they, too, were not free from the heavy rule that governed the great martial world of the Central Plains: the rule of distribution.

“All right, you two, that’s far enough.”

It was because Cheonjeong, Head Senior of the Third Generation,

had draped an arm across both their shoulders and delivered a quiet warning.

Chapter 11

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