WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 56: When Water Is Too Clear, There Are No Fish (4)
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Mo Cheong asked,
“Master. Once I become first-rate, I’ll start facing heart demons in earnest too, right?”
Yi Yubaek answered,
“It varies from person to person, but usually, yes. Once you ignite True Flame, there will be times when heart demons come for you in force.”
“Sowol said the hallucinations you see and hear when you fall into a heart demon are no different from reality. Is that true?”
“It can be.”
“Wow. Then what do you do? If you can’t tell it apart from reality, isn’t it impossible not to be led astray?”
“That is why one undergoes closed-door seclusion. So no one can reach you. Then you know that everything which comes to you is a delusion.”
“But what if you can’t undergo closed-door seclusion? Or what if there are delusions that closed-door seclusion can’t deal with...?”
“You worry too much.”
Yi Yubaek laughed heartily, then gave Mo Cheong’s question serious thought.
He had never forgotten the day his senior brother, consumed by a heart demon, stabbed their master to death.
He could not take such a concern lightly.
“Mo Cheong.”
“Yes.”
“Suppose there is a flower before you, along with a bronze mirror reflecting that flower.”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell which is the mirror and which is the flower?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“You can tell just by looking.”
“Explain.”
“Um... The reflection in the mirror is duller in color, for one thing. And its shape is a little distorted. You can just tell, can’t you?”
Yi Yubaek nodded broadly.
“Yes. That is the method.”
“...”
“You do not understand?”
“...No. I don’t get it.”
Yi Yubaek snickered. He did not say the cruel thing that Yeon Sowol would have understood immediately and gone, “Ah!”
“No matter how convincing a heart demon may be, it cannot be exactly the same as reality. If you make your heart utterly clear and look closely, you can distinguish truth from falsehood, just as you distinguish a flower from its reflection.”
“What if your heart isn’t clear?”
“Then it will be difficult to tell them apart.”
“How do you make your heart utterly clear?”
Yi Yubaek smiled at Mo Cheong’s question.
“Do you want to know?”
Mo Cheong’s face went pale.
“No. No, Master. Not now. I’m fine for now. I’ll ask again when I’m close to becoming first-rate.”
Mo Cheong vehemently refused, shaking both his hands and his head.
Clicking his tongue, Yi Yubaek said,
“Anyway, that is the method. Find your standard with a clear heart. Find the root of your heart, a certain fact that can never be false. You have no choice but to work through it using that as your foundation. At least, that is the only method I know.”
“...Sowol will do well, right?”
Mo Cheong cautiously watched Yi Yubaek’s expression.
“You brat. That was what you really wanted to ask.”
Yi Yubaek roughly tousled Mo Cheong’s hair.
“It will not be easy. There are those who see visions when they enter the first-rate realm. They say that the greater the thing one sees then, the greater the heart demon that follows. I saw a mountain, so I cannot even imagine what Sowol saw. Perhaps he saw the sea.”
“Come on, Master. Isn’t the sea too huge?”
“Is it? Well, he must have seen something immense, and he has the Greater Rejuvenation Pill on top of that. At the very least, it will be twice as severe as what I went through. Ghosts from his past will torment him, and he will be tempted to break his seclusion at once.”
Yi Yubaek quietly looked through the open window.
Beyond the city wall stood a mountain. Yeon Sowol’s seclusion cave was there.
“Still, Sowol will overcome it. The greater the heart demon, the broader and more generous the heart becomes after defeating it. He will come out with an exceptionally sturdy foundation.”
“...You said a month, so we still have twenty days to wait.”
“I said a month, but it differs greatly from person to person. A boy like Sowol may come out of seclusion much sooner.”
“I hope so...”
Mo Cheong, too, turned his gaze toward the mountain beyond the window.
Then Yi Yubaek spoke.
“Mo Cheong.”
“Yes.”
“Let us go outside.”
“Yes. Shall I take my leave, then?”
“No. We must clear our hearts.”
“...!”
“Come with me. We will clear our hearts.”
“...!!!”
Yi Yubaek flicked his robe and walked out of the room.
Mo Cheong awkwardly rose to follow, his eyes trembling violently.
* * *
‘Get a grip. Get a grip, Yeon Sowol.’
He clasped his shaking hands together.
Yet no matter how hard he squeezed, they only trembled more fiercely.
He listened closely.
...
He could not hear anything.
Not now.
But earlier, he had definitely...
“Heart demon. It’s a heart demon. It has to be.”
That could not be true.
It could not.
“Train. My spirit is shaken right now, that’s all. I’ll be fine if I keep training. It’s all a heart demon. Once I completely reach the next stage, I’ll be fine. Mm. Mm.”
Muttering like a madman, Yeon Sowol resumed cultivating the Willow Serenity Art.
The Willow Serenity Art was an inner cultivation method, a discipline for the heart.
Once he focused until sweat ran down his body and trained, it truly had an effect.
His heart settled at once.
Just as it had during his previous closed-door seclusion.
Stray thoughts vanished. He forgot where he was. He even forgot himself. There was only the self that contemplated, explored, and trained.
Flap. Flap.
Though there was no wind, the hem of Yeon Sowol’s robe swelled. A heat haze, as if he were burning, rose from his entire body.
Fierce Flame Pierces the Heavens
The violent heat haze blazed as though it would pierce the sky, while his swollen robes fluttered.
He passed beyond Brave Flame Soars, the threshold of the first-rate realm, and reached mid first-rate in one leap.
Yet Yeon Sowol did not stop. He continued heating his Eight Extraordinary Vessels ever more fiercely, trying to raise true qi.
- “Honey! Honey! Sowol’s body is burning up!”
- “Uh, what?”
That was when he heard them.
A woman’s muffled scream of alarm, followed by the hoarse voice of a man who sounded as if he had just woken up.
Flinch.
Yeon Sowol’s state of complete absorption, which had seemed impossible to shake, broke apart. For an instant, even the Willow Serenity Art nearly stopped.
- “Nurse, Sowol... Sowol’s body...”
- “This has never happened before. Why is this happening?”
- “...Just a moment. I’ll get the doctor.”
Yeon Sowol desperately maintained his breathing and continued the movements.
The Willow Serenity Art had happened to be at its peak. He could not stop in the middle. If he took even one breath wrong or made one movement wrong, he had too much to lose. He might throw away a full fifth of the gains from the Greater Rejuvenation Pill he had worked so hard to consume.
- “Sowol! Sowol! Wh-what’s happening to Sowol? He’s sweating so much, and he’s thrashing around...”
- “Sowol. It’s okay. It’s okay. You can overcome this. Yes? You can do it. Stay still. Calm down. Relax.”
- “Nurse, a sedative!”
‘Calm down?’
Stop moving? When he was in the middle of cultivation?
Cold sweat poured down Yeon Sowol’s face, but he continued the Willow Serenity Art.
He was barely sane, but the Willow Serenity Art had already been etched into his body and heart, beyond conscious thought. He was able to continue without making a mistake.
...
Drip.
Drip.
Cold sweat fell from his chin and struck the floor of the cave.
“What is this...?”
Having finished cultivating the Willow Serenity Art, Yeon Sowol could only stand there blankly, unable even to think of washing himself.
“What the hell is this?”
He had somehow managed to get past it once.
But he could not get past it twice.
What if?
What if...
“What if this is all a dream, and the real me is lying in a hospital room?”
The very thought made one corner of his heart feel as though it had collapsed.
What should he do if that were true?
“Wake up from the dream.”
But how?
Yeon Sowol asked himself, and a method came to him with frightening speed.
“...By dying.”
If there was one certain way to wake from a dream, it was probably death.
Usually, the moment one died in a dream was the moment one woke up.
People did not usually dream of dying, going to the afterlife, and receiving judgment from the Ten Kings of the Underworld.
‘Die?’
The moment he thought it, another way to die easily came to mind.
It would not even be difficult. All he had to do was alter the order of a few movements and breaths while cultivating the Willow Serenity Art...
Smack!
Yeon Sowol harshly slapped his own cheek.
Cold sweat dripped from him, and his entire body trembled.
“Sowol... Sowol. Get a grip. It’s a heart demon.”
But.
Could he truly be certain?
“...”
As cold sweat continued to fall from him, Yeon Sowol thought.
“Let’s think logically. Logically. One thing at a time. Compare everything. Which is false and which is true...”
Time passed.
Was it because the lingering heat of the Greater Rejuvenation Pill remained?
Whenever he stood still, the inside of his body soon flared hot.
He had to cultivate the Willow Serenity Art again.
He had to spread the fire inside him evenly.
Yet whenever the Willow Serenity Art reached its peak, he heard it without fail.
- “Sowol. You look peaceful today. That’s a relief.”
Flinch!
Yeon Sowol’s body trembled.
He had felt a hand touch his forehead.
- “Sowol. Can you hear me? The doctor said that even people in a coma can hear everything. Sowol.”
Drip. Drip.
‘Why...?’
He was clearly moving his body and cultivating the Willow Serenity Art, so why did he feel wetness on the back of his hand?
- “Sowol... Can you squeeze Mom’s hand just once? Yes? Just once, tightly. As hard as you can. Please, Sowol.”
Yeon Sowol broke out in a cold sweat.
The flow of energy had to reach his fingertips.
But.
If all he did was squeeze his hand once.
If he accepted only the smallest, most trivial loss...
‘Get a grip, Yeon Sowol!’
Yeon Sowol shouted at himself.
‘It’s a heart demon! A heart demon! What will squeezing your hand accomplish? If you really feel Mom’s hand, what then? Will you deny everything here as false and kill yourself?’
He desperately worked his mind.
‘Logical. Find the logical flaw. If I can find a logical flaw...’
But.
There was no flaw.
A cave so dark that he could not see in front of him.
- “Sowol. I believe you’ll open your eyes someday. Mom can wait. Still... Don’t take too long to wake up.”
What if the darkness was not because of the cave?
What if it was because he had his eyes closed in reality?
Both made sense.
‘No! Think carefully. Isn’t the timing strange? Why do I only hear voices when the Willow Serenity Art reaches its peak? It’s practically screaming that it wants to drive me into Cultivation Deviation!’
But what if it was because his consciousness, trapped in a coma, briefly surfaced, and his senses interpreted it within the dream as cultivation or taking a spiritual elixir?
Like how a loud sound from outside a dream becomes a war breaking out within it.
‘No. A dream can’t be this consistent!’
Was it not only because, while inside a dream, one thought that everything made sense?
And honestly. Internal energy, transcendence, people of the Jianghu. Was that not exactly the kind of material that belonged in a chaotic dream one had during the day?
Think about it calmly.
There was one story where the world tore apart on that bus, and he crossed into another dimension.
There was another story where he had actually been seriously injured then and had spent all this time dreaming in a coma.
Which one was more realistic?
“...”
- “Sowol, today...”
- “Sowol. I regret so much that I didn’t tell you I loved you more often.”
As he thought, another doubt suddenly came to him.
Could this really be a heart demon?
‘A heart demon is supposed to arise within my own heart, isn’t it?’
Yet if this was a heart demon, it was too malicious.
As though it wanted to destroy him.
But if it was not a heart demon...
‘Then is this martial world holding me here instead? To destroy me?’
To keep him from waking up from his coma?
It made sense when he thought of it one way.
It made sense when he thought of it another.
His understanding could give him no answer.
The martial world had the logic of the martial world.
The real world had the logic of the real world.
It had been impossible from the beginning to compare two worlds with fundamentally different premises by a single standard.
He could trust nothing.
Then.
What should he do?
Yeon Sowol gritted his teeth.
‘What else can I do? I have to dig into it until I am convinced.’
That was the only thing he could do.
‘I’ll dig to the very end and find the answer. Until then, I won’t break my seclusion!’
Yeon Sowol realized instinctively that this was not a question he could settle with some shallow, half-formed answer.
If he did,
‘I’ll never escape this question for the rest of my life.’
Even if he broke his seclusion and left, it would cling to the back of his mind.
Was this truly reality?
Could he say it was not a dream?
What about his real parents...?
To live forever with thoughts like that?
The end of that path sent a chill through him just to imagine.
‘I have to settle it now.’
Heart demon or coma.
Slowly, Yeon Sowol retraced his journey from the moment he had fallen into the martial world until now.
The shocking true face of the Central Plains.
His meeting with the merchant Jo Manseok.
His meeting with Yi Yubaek.
Closed-door seclusion.
The Shinheung Three Dogs.
Eun-yeong.
The boat ride.
The Governor-General and the Commander-in-Chief.
Seo Muryang.
Hang Inwoo.
...
Why was that?
From the moment he began recalling his closed-door seclusion, a gentle smile spread across Yeon Sowol’s lips.
With the same wholehearted heart he had possessed then, he traced back through each memory. His heart became firm and clear.
- “His numbers are dropping!”
- “Sowol! No!”
- “Sowol, don’t give up. Please, open your eyes.”
- “Come back, Sowol!”
Though he was not cultivating the Willow Serenity Art, distant voices drifted into his ears again.
The sharp smell of disinfectant touched his nose.
Even so, Yeon Sowol did not waver anymore.
His heart was utterly clear.
Why had he been confused?
“It can’t be false.”
Everything in the Jianghu had been a dream he dreamed while in a coma?
“That can’t be true.”
Yeon Sowol remembered.
The desperate pain and terror of his first closed-door seclusion.
And the joy he had felt when he overcame it.
The sunset he had watched over a drink on the roof the first time he flew...
“If this were a dream, it would have been made from things already inside me.”
But Yeon Sowol could say with certainty.
Everything he had felt then was something he had never felt before in his life, something he had never even imagined.
Whether he liked it or not.
It was a world he had newly seen and felt.
Just as the sea could not appear in the dream of someone who had never heard of or seen the sea in their life.
It felt as though the fog in his mind had cleared.
That pain could not have been a dream.
That wonder could not have been a dream.
It could not have been so shitty.
It could not have been so beautiful.
A world that raised another person could not be a solitary delusion.
A young man’s aspirations lay in the Jianghu.
In the Jianghu beneath the night rain, he had faced nothing but lanterns for ten long years.
But from now on, peach blossoms would bloom in profusion at the temple on the mountain.
Yeon Sowol opened his eyes.
His gaze was perfectly clear.
“Yeon Seonhong. Someone like him could not have come from my own mind.”
He understood it clearly.
- Tsk.
Somewhere, he heard a single click of the tongue.
“Ah.”
Yeon Sowol suddenly saw the cave, brightly lit.
As though someone had thrown open blackout curtains.
The entrance remained blocked, without the slightest beam of light entering, yet somehow he could see through the darkness and make out everything perfectly.
The spring in one corner of the wall.
The piled fasting pills and jerky.
His spare clothes.
He suddenly looked inward.
Within his Eight Extraordinary Vessels, qi flowed clearer and more forcefully than before.
Faint Fragrance Unfading
A stage with a faint fragrance, untouched by darkness.
It referred to the late first-rate realm.
Footnotes:
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