WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 180: Spring Silkworms Spin Silk Until Death (4)
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“Senior Brother. Is something going on? You look awfully pleased with yourself.”
The Third Elder spoke to Hwagokja, who was out for a night walk.
It was neither working hours nor an official occasion, so instead of calling him Sect Leader, the Third Elder simply called him Senior Brother. Just as they had in childhood. Familiar and warm.
Even in such circumstances, most people would normally be mindful of the Sect Leader’s authority and watch their words. But the Third Elder had always been rather free-spirited in that regard.
“Hwamyeong. What brings you out in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, nothing. I couldn’t sleep... But seriously, what is it? I haven’t seen you grinning like this since you entered Loss of Self.”
Hwagokja looked at Hwamyeongja with a meaningful gaze.
Reaching the realm of Loss of Self did not mean one lost all emotion. Still, it was true that one’s emotional highs and lows grew gentler than before.
That was why Hwagokja knew it. What he was feeling now was unusually intense for him these days.
‘Well. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.’
Tension and anticipation. Concern and delight, all tangled together.
There were times when following such feelings could not be called a bad thing.
Mischief filled Hwagokja’s face.
“If you promise to keep a secret, I’ll tell you in advance.”
“A secret? Oh? Then of course I promise. What happened?”
“I have a new youngest junior disciple.”
“A youngest... junior disciple?”
Hwamyeongja’s face went blank.
“Wait! Don’t tell me Martial Uncle...?”
“That’s right. He acknowledged Yeon Dao-friend... No. Junior Brother Yeon’s generational standing.”
“Then has he accepted him as a mountain-guarding disciple...?”
“No, I don’t think so. To become a mountain-guarding disciple, one must sever one’s ties to the secular world. Junior Brother Yeon does not seem like he would accept that, and Martial Uncle does not seem to intend to demand it. He will merely acknowledge his generational standing while allowing him to remain a lay disciple.”
“Good heavens.”
Hwamyeongja blinked with a vacant expression, then slowly spoke.
“That means... he will not teach him the mountain-guarding ultimate art, but he intends to pass on Martial Uncle’s own insights without holding anything back?”
“Most likely.”
“Still, his generational standing will be recognized. That means first-generation disciples in their forties and fifties will have to call that twenty-year-old Hero Yeon ‘Martial Uncle’ and bow their heads.”
“That’s right. And not Hero Yeon. Junior Brother Yeon.”
“This is madness. I’m over sixty. You’re telling me I have to call a twenty-year-old my younger brother?”
“That’s right.”
“Good heavens...”
Hwamyeongja could not find anything to say and merely moved their lips. The smile on Hwagokja’s face deepened.
“What do you think? Isn’t it amusing?”
Then resentment suddenly appeared on Hwamyeongja’s face.
“No. You’re telling me to keep this secret? So you mean to keep all the fun of spreading this news to yourself?”
“It is too entertaining to share.”
“Are you not a Daoist who has reached Loss of Self? This amusement is too great for someone like you to enjoy. Give it to me.”
“Does reaching Loss of Self mean I no longer know amusement? I merely accept, without discrimination, the amusement I feel as well.”
“That is exactly why it is a waste. I am still at Clear Heart, so I can enjoy it completely, very discriminately, and very amusingly. Give it to me.”
Hwagokja merely smiled without answering. Realizing it was useless, Hwamyeongja sighed and changed the subject.
“Still, Martial Uncle must truly like Junior Brother Yeon. He had been so absorbed in researching new martial arts that he even neglected teaching us, and now suddenly...”
“Indeed.”
“I only hope this does not delay Martial Uncle’s research. He is a genius who appears perhaps once in a century. The martial arts he researches will surely become a new pillar of Wudang...”
“Do not worry about that. Whatever else may be true, he is not a mountain-guarding disciple, so he will not study under him for long. This change of pace may even help Martial Uncle’s research.”
“I suppose that is true.”
Hwamyeongja smacked their lips and nodded, then cautiously looked toward Hwagokja.
“But can’t you really give it to me, Senior Brother?”
Hwagokja only smiled.
Hwamyeongja frowned and shook their head.
* * *
Yeon Sowol’s brow was furrowed.
He seemed deeply lost in thought.
As though he almost understood, yet did not.
He sat cross-legged atop a pavilion.
Before him lay the pitch-black night sky, full of twinkling starlight.
And Chungdam True Man’s teachings flowed past his ears.
“Thus, even turbidity is not greatly different. It has merely become excessively one-sided and unable to connect freely; its essence is the same. All things in the world arose from primordial qi.”
As the explanation continued, the tension gradually left Yeon Sowol’s brow.
The focus vanished from his eyes.
He seemed to be looking at nothing.
No, it was as if he were taking in the entire night sky spread before him.
Whooooom-
At some point, Yeon Sowol’s true qi began to circulate.
His Eight Extraordinary Vessels stirred.
His robes fluttered.
Heat haze rose along his back.
Watching this quietly, Chungdam True Man murmured.
“Are you trying to gather your qi into one?”
When things connect, they become one.
That was the teaching he had just given.
Following that principle, Yeon Sowol began weaving all his energies together.
The Five Elements chased one another’s tails.
The Eight Trigrams pushed and pulled at one another.
The Three Talents, Nine Palaces, Ten Heavenly Stems, Twelve Earthly Branches...
The bow, explosions, light, darkness, life, death...
All the energies he had steadily gathered through encountering countless martial artists in Yuezhou began connecting with one another.
When things connect, they can resonate.
When one approached, another trembled.
When one withdrew, another followed.
They seeped into one another, rebounded, scattered, gathered...
“To connect means becoming impossible to divide so cleanly. When fire meets water, it crackles, boils, and becomes white steam. Then where has the fire gone? Where has the water gone?”
The more the energies connected with one another, the harder they became to name.
If they continued connecting without end, they would eventually become one and form something greater and deeper.
That was what Yeon Sowol sought.
To unite all his energies and gather them at a single point.
However,
“The principle is as such, but achieving it in practice will not be easy.”
Connecting did not only lead to unification.
When fire burned wood, the fire grew stronger and the earth increased.
At times, connecting only divided two things into greater imbalance. To truly unite and condense them, one had to consider how they should connect.
Yet Yeon Sowol’s brow did not furrow again.
‘Let them connect and unite. Connect and unite.’
He merely muttered beneath his breath, his unfocused eyes tracing the spaces between the stars as he brought them into harmony.
He was calm. Familiar with it.
How should they connect?
That was what Yeon Sowol had pondered and practiced all along.
He had investigated and investigated the nature of every energy he had taken in, as well as their individual relationships.
He had even tried to become the conductor himself and move that entire universe.
“You rascal.”
Chungdam True Man smiled.
“Then again, this was the art you honed until you nearly fell to a heart demon. Perhaps it will not be so difficult for you.”
Whoooooom-
Within his Eight Extraordinary Vessels, Yeon Sowol’s energies united and united again. They condensed and condensed again.
At some point, they became impossible to distinguish.
Water and fire were clearly different.
Yet they connected so closely that it became difficult to say where water ended and fire began.
Chungdam True Man suddenly recited with a sigh.
“In the Daoist tradition, the Dao as a thing is hazy and indistinct.
“Indistinct and hazy, within it are images.
“Hazy and indistinct, within it are things.”
The energies had drawn so close that each could no longer be distinguished.
Chungdam True Man had no choice but to acknowledge it.
“It truly is hazy and indistinct.”
Ecstatic, in other words.
‘Ah.’
At the same time, Yeon Sowol realized it.
He had reached a new point he had never experienced before.
‘This is...’
The energies had not fully become one and identical.
Yet neither could they be separated and distinguished from one another.
Once he entered this state, everything changed.
Until now, Yeon Sowol had been the conductor.
He was the one who delicately adjusted every energy, guiding them to connect and unite.
But not anymore.
There was no longer any need.
The countless energies had drawn so close that they could no longer distinguish one another’s positions... Without effort, they connected intensely, and because they connected so intensely, they united intensely.
They united.
And united.
And united.
Without him doing anything.
Which meant...
‘Self-collapse...’
A word suddenly came to Yeon Sowol’s mind.
A term anyone familiar with science or subculture in twenty-first-century South Korea would have heard at least once.
‘The Chandrasekhar limit...’
The threshold where the balance between gravity and degeneracy pressure broke down.
Just as a celestial body reaching certain conditions collapsed under its own force, Yeon Sowol’s energies connected and united with ever greater strength on their own.
Whoooooom-!
A five-colored radiance formed in the heat haze rising along Yeon Sowol’s spine.
No, it was a seven-colored radiance.
No... It was a radiance too difficult to describe in words.
Yet Chungdam True Man warned him instead.
“Remarkable. But Sowol, that hazy and indistinct energy is not something you can conduct as you please. If even a little of its balance collapses, it will immediately become one-sided and split apart. Even having reached Loss of Self, this is qi too vast and powerful. You may suffer a serious internal injury, so do not be too greedy.”
The energy connected without end, condensing further and finally uniting.
But if it wavered even slightly, it could spill out with tremendous force and destroy everything.
Yeon Sowol understood that.
Although this was the first time he had entered such a state, he knew instinctively.
It was like placing his hand on the controls of a train racing at full speed. He simply knew.
Yet Yeon Sowol neither panicked nor feared it.
Loss of Self.
That unbiased heart accepted everything as it was, leaving no easy direction for symmetry to break.
But Yeon Sowol went further, looking down on everything in the world from above.
Yeon Sowol’s eyes, which had already torn through and passed beyond the world, missed nothing. They possessed Clear Knowing even of the slightest tremor, preserving the balance.
Like an experienced captain turning a huge ship with only the small force needed to move the wheel.
“Huh.”
Another exclamation escaped Chungdam True Man.
“Now I truly do not know.”
The energies, hazy and indistinct enough that they could not be separated from one another, gradually became energies even Chungdam True Man could not look into.
Yeon Sowol thought of another very famous term.
‘The Schwarzschild radius...’
A celestial body smaller than that radius developed an event horizon.
And no one could see beyond it.
That was a black hole.
It was the metaphor Yeon Sowol had kept in mind from the moment he conceived of the third path.
The point where Clear Knowing ended.
He knew what he had put inside, yet could never know what happened within.
A fundamental blank space held by the universe.
Energy that could no longer be distinguished, perhaps already unified without distinction.
Then what should it be called?
A state that could be described by neither the Dao Chungdam True Man knew nor the science Yeon Sowol knew.
‘A singularity.’
Chungdam True Man suddenly murmured.
“...Sowol. What will you do now? You cannot touch that.”
Perfect symmetry, achieved through Loss of Self and the qi sense of Heaven-Killing Star.
The singularity born from it.
But precisely because of that, it could not be changed.
No change could occur while perfect symmetry remained intact, and a change forcibly brought about could not become the Dao.
Yet Yeon Sowol, whose eyes had closed at some point, was smiling.
As if none of it mattered.
He was simply completely immersed in the energy he had created.
Just as every energy had connected and become a singularity, Yeon Sowol himself merely connected with that singularity.
Without the slightest unease in his heart.
Without growing bored in the least.
Without impatience.
Without greed.
He merely continued to compose his mind.
He merely continued not to become one-sided.
“There is no shadow in your heart.”
Chungdam True Man understood.
Why Yeon Sowol could remain composed and unbiased.
His heart demon had already died, leaving his heart free.
“With a heart free of shadows, you have connected with such energy.”
He let out a long sigh.
Drawn in by that profound and mysterious energy, Yeon Sowol would unknowingly take one step forward, then return again.
Still...
“For a brief moment, you will taste Nonaction.”
Nonaction.
There was no forced action.
Yet nothing was left unfulfilled.
As though...
This universe...
Had come into being naturally.
What connected became one.
But at another moment, it also divided.
Without needing to distinguish them.
Without needing to push them.
Harmony blooming of its own accord.
Then suddenly,
The singularity opened.
...
Yeon Sowol added nothing more.
Yet it split apart.
From that single point which neither Yeon Sowol nor Chungdam True Man could recognize.
Whoooooom-!
Not five colors, nor seven colors. It was infinitely distant.
“What could that be?”
It seemed like the birth of a microcosm, yet he hesitated to call it that.
The birth of energy even Chungdam True Man did not know.
That unknowable energy became new, then newer, and continued becoming new, making it even more unknowable.
“...I thought I had merely taken in a disciple.”
Now, Chungdam True Man knew only one thing.
“It seems I have gained a Dao-friend.”
Someone who would walk the path of the Dao with him.
A disciple.
A companion.
A friend.
At last, Yeon Sowol reached the peak realm.
Footnotes:
This quotation comes from the Daoist tradition. In Korean, the word rendered here as “hazy and indistinct” can also mean “ecstatic.” The chapter deliberately invokes both meanings.
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