Chapter 22

Father smiled bitterly and stroked my head. “In that case, accept it.”
Brushing aside the feeling of uneasiness, I grabbed the dagger and jumped up to bow to Lord Wan. “Thank you for this precious gift. I’ll be sure to cherish it.”
Lord Wan nodded, pleased by my manners.
Father then began to instruct me with a serious expression on his face. “It’s a good blade, so don’t go showing it off to others. You must also never swing it carelessly. That goes double for you, Yeon...” That was just the beginning of his very, very long lecture. Lord Wan pounded his chest in frustration and opened the windows as my father continued to speak. “So be sure to be extra careful.”
“I will!” Unlike Lord Wan, I nodded like a good student and replied cheerfully.
“You done now?” Lord Wan asked. He was sitting in an unsightly pose, his legs crossed and his arms on the table holding up his chin as he stared out the window.
“You’d better heed my words as well.”
“Fine, fine,” Lord Wan replied.
“And your posture is atrocious.”
Lord Wan waved my father off and glanced at me. “Anyway, mind if I take a look at Yeon?”
“Her inner qi?” Father asked.
Lord Wan nodded. I looked at him in surprise. It was extremely rude among martial artists to examine another’s inner qi. That meant they’d be assessing your level of mastery, and it was human nature not to want to show your report card to your own parents, let alone anyone else. So who would gladly allow a complete stranger to inspect one’s inner qi?
Not to mention that it’s dangerous. There was risk involved for both the examiner inputting their inner qi and the examinee receiving it. But the fact that Lord Wan still insisted on inspecting me... I looked at Father, and he simply nodded.
The three of us immediately headed to an open space in the room. It was the area where I usually played, covered with soft sheepskins, silky fabrics, and plush cushions. As I sat in the posture I used for qi circulation, Lord Wan took a seat behind me.
Father stood guard as Lord Wan placed his hands on my back. With the words “I’ll be starting now,” he began channeling his inner qi inside me. At first it felt prickly, a sort of eerie, inexplicable sensation that started to flow throughout my body, but the sensation vanished almost immediately. I closed my eyes momentarily and opened them up again.
I could feel Lord Wan carefully take his hands off my back.
“Wait... Is it over already?”
“It’s been half a shijin.”
“What?”
An hour had passed in the single blink of an eye. The moment I tried to turn to look at Father, the world blurred, and an overwhelming fatigue began to weigh down on me. My stomach started to churn as though I was suffering from a terrible hangover.
Father picked me up and told Lord Wan, “I’ll be back once I put Yeon to bed.”
Lord Wan just nodded in response.
* * *
Eondu had just left to reheat the lukewarm teapot for the third time when Euigang returned. “I’m sorry. Yeon couldn’t fall asleep and kept tossing and turning.”
Wan nodded in acceptance. Yeon had been severely injured. It was no surprise that her body had reacted in such a way toward an unfamiliar qi.
The results of the examination hadn’t been promising, either. Wan hadn’t found a shred of inner qi, and her qi center was utterly destroyed. She really had barely survived with her life.
Euigang knew Yeon’s condition better than anyone. Wan slowly opened his mouth to speak as he peered at his friend’s anxious face. “I laughed when I first heard that you had a daughter. I told everyone some idiot who envied you was spreading nonsense to smear your name.”
He’d met the subordinate who delivered the news with a barrage of insults, rebukes, and a snide recommendation to just quit rather than continue to deliver false rumors. But afterward, that same subordinate had been granted a bonus and a promotion...
“But then— Ha! Do you know how shocked I was?”
To think that Euigang really had a daughter, and that the daughter’s qi center was destroyed due to qi deviation... At first, Wan couldn’t believe the letter that Euigang had sent him asking if he knew a method of healing a shattered qi center, or could help to heal one. He had read it over multiple times to confirm that it was indeed from his old friend.
“How did this happen?” he asked.
Now that he was here, it was clear to Wan that Euigang cared deeply for his daughter. Wan could swear that he’d seen Euigang smile more today than in all their past years together combined. Wan recognized that Euigang was a gentler soul than he was, but by no means did that mean he was generous with his smiles. If anything, Wan would have described his friend as a brick wall, stubborn and unmoving.
Euigang rubbed at his stiff face with his hands. “Yeon... It seems that she had a nanny, who sent me a letter before she passed away from illness.”
“Wait. What about her mother?” Wan asked.
Euigang didn’t respond.
Seeing his friend’s face, Wan let out a soft sound of sympathy and said, “Keep going.”
“Due to some complications, it took three months more than she’d expected for me to receive the letter. By the time I found Yeon... The nanny was long dead, and Yeon had already spent over a month wandering the streets. If I’d found her any later...”
It was Wan’s first time hearing of all this, and he was just as shaken. “It seems the heavens smiled upon you.” After all, it was practically a miracle for a child to have survived out on the streets for over a month.
“When I first saw her, I was remorseful, and then I was overwhelmed.” Euigang’s face began to crumple. “In my rush to find her, I couldn’t even complete the assignment the Martial Alliance had given me. I was going to fulfill my duties first and then... No, that’s just an excuse. I should never have left my child behind, no matter what.”
“You claimed her and left her in the care of your family. It wasn’t a bad call.”
“No, that’s not it. This was my mistake.”
Wan paused for a moment then offered, “We’re only human. It’s normal for us to make mistakes.”
His friend shook his head silently.
Wan looked at Euigang with an unreadable expression before saying slowly, “In that case, if you could go back and do it all over again, what would you do?”
Euigang stared Wan directly in the eye. Neither of them looked away.
“I know how to fix your daughter,” Wan finally stated.
His friend froze in place like a statue. Vitality began to return to his face, washing away any hint of his previous fatigue. “Do you really?” he exclaimed.
“Why do you think I came here?” Wan took a sip of his tea and began to tell his story. “There’s a tiny place known as Palgwae Village about a month’s journey from here on horseback. Last year a huge landslide swept most of the village away, and the remaining survivors were left either severely wounded or bedridden.”
His story had nothing to do with healing qi centers, but Euigang’s attention was completely focused on the words that came out of Wan’s mouth.
“The closest doctor was in a remote village about a ten days’ walk from their own. But then another landslide blocked off the only path between the two villages. Everyone assumed there’d be no survivors.”
“How unfortunate...” Euigang murmured in sympathy.
“Half a year later, someone from a neighboring village with a close friend in the remote village made a path and visited Palgwae to check for any survivors... And, there, he saw the once bedridden patients walking about on their own two feet.” Parched from having spoken for so long, Wan took another sip of his tea to moisten his lips. “It was Divine Physician Mahn’s work.”
Euigang’s eyes widened.
“You’ve heard it as well, haven’t you? That the Divine Physician once healed a qi-ruined patient.”
“Of course I...!”
Everyone in the martial world knew of that legendary story. Euigang clenched his fist as though he were about to leap up at any moment, but then let go. His face was even more conflicted after hearing Wan’s words. “But I thought the Divine Physician swore not to associate with the martial world anymore...”
He had sworn it to the heavens and become a recluse. Would someone like him break his vows to heal Yeon?
It was at that moment that Wan took out a scarlet silk pouch. It was the size of his palm and plain, without so much as a piece of embroidery for decoration. The pouch thudded lightly as Wan placed it on the table, signaling the solidity of its contents. “Open it.”
Euigang took the pouch and opened it to find a flat, rectangular block engraved with letters. A tassel dangled from it, which had clearly once been red but now had faded to a light pink. It must have been at least over ten years old. “Isn’t this an identification plaque?”
“It is.”
An identification plaque was a form of personal identification, the same kind that Namgoong Wan had presented before entering the Baengri clan compound.
“This is the Divine Physician’s,” Wan said.
Euigang inhaled sharply. For martial artists, handing over one’s plaque had a special meaning. Should the person who received the plaque request aid, its owner would be obligated to provide it, no matter the cause. It represented an unconditional promise upon which one staked their reputation and honor—and the fact that Namgoong Wan had the Divine Physician’s meant that he could demand anything of the Divine Physician.
“With this plaque, the Divine Physician will have no choice but to heal your daughter.”

Chapter end