WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 9: Read a Book a Hundred Times and Its Meaning Reveals Itself (8)

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Yeon Sowol repeated the breathing method and the Willow Serenity Art.

He needed to keep doing them as naturally as breathing, whether he was asleep or awake.

Even when exhaustion so intense it felt lethal swept over him, even when every ache made his whole body feel as if it were breaking apart, Yeon Sowol kept breathing and moving.

Ten days passed like that.

Yi Yubaek's voice came from beyond the door.

"Ten days have passed. Are you still alive?"

"......Yes."

Yeon Sowol swallowed the anger and misery rising in his throat before answering quietly.

"What did you endure with?"

"I endured by giving my whole heart to it."

"What did you give your whole heart to?"

Yeon Sowol clenched his teeth.

Words formed on their own and forced their way out of his throat.

"Hate. I hated myself for not being able to freely control something as trivial as a single breath. I despised this body that hurts so badly it feels like it'll shatter over one small movement. But more than anything, I hated this world, and I hated you for making me like this."

"......"

The voice beyond the door fell silent for a moment.

Just as Yeon Sowol was about to spit out something harsher, it spoke again.

"You still have not given your heart fully enough."

"What?"

It was absurd.

Yeon Sowol stomped toward the door.

"Do not get excited."

"How am I supposed not to get excit...!"

Rattle!

He shoved the door with all his strength. It was secured with a bar and chains, but it was still a poorly made wooden door. When he pushed hard enough, he could see a little outside through the gap.

"......"

Yeon Sowol froze.

There was no one outside the narrow opening.

Not even a single footprint marked the ground.

It was another hallucination.

Yi Yubaek had lost his master because of a senior disciple consumed by a heart demon. There was no way he would come here.

"Ah."

Yeon Sowol slid down the door and sank to the floor.

"Ahh."

He gripped his forehead.

"This won't do."

He sprang up and pulled out the meridian chart Yi Yubaek had given him.

"He said my closed-door seclusion would last until I understood the Twelve Regular Meridians and Eight Extraordinary Vessels on my own."

Yeon Sowol decided he would end this horrible training as quickly as possible.

His physical condition was a disaster.

The breathing method had settled into his body enough lately that he could snatch brief bits of sleep, but he still woke every ten minutes.

"There's no point waiting until I'm in perfect condition."

Yeon Sowol ground his teeth.

"Let's do this."

With bloodshot eyes, he stared at the meridian chart Yi Yubaek had given him.

They were neither blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, nor nerves, yet they ran densely throughout the body drawn in the diagram.

Yeon Sowol looked at it again and again, but he could not get a grasp on what it was.

"He could've explained it, at least..."

Read one book a hundred times and its meaning would reveal itself.

Repeat the Willow Serenity Art and awaken to it on his own.

"What kind of Joseon-era study method is this...?"

Twenty-first-century students did not study in such an ignorant way.

Time was not endless.

If he listened to a proper lecture, identified the key points, and studied them intensively, he could understand things faster and more accurately. Why would anyone choose such a stupid method?

That outdated obsession with willpower.

‘It's just how lazy, incompetent teachers gaslight their students.’

Still, complaints were meaningless right now.

Complaints only meant something when there was an alternative or room to spare.

Yeon Sowol shoved down his rising dissatisfaction and focused.

During training, he had to devote his whole mind to it. If he let his guard down even a little, he had no idea when a heart demon or Cultivation Deviation might take hold of him.

"First, I need to memorize this inside out."

He did not mean simply memorizing the picture.

"I need to memorize it while firmly imprinting where each part is in my actual body."

He needed to feel it clearly in his body.

To the point where, even half-asleep, he could point anywhere and immediately say, Ah, this is the Quchi acupoint of the Hand Yangming Large Intestine Meridian. Ah, this is the Dazhui acupoint of the Governing Vessel, and this is the Qihai acupoint of the Conception Vessel.

By Yeon Sowol's standards, that was what memorizing meant.

It was an active, forward-looking way to study, nothing like mindlessly reading something a hundred times.

"Hoo. Huuu..."

He kept up the breathing method, pinching his thigh whenever his eyes started to close as he memorized the meridian chart.

The three hand yang meridians and three hand yin meridians that ran through the arms.

The three foot yang meridians and three foot yin meridians that ran through the legs.

Together, they formed the Twelve Regular Meridians.

The Conception Vessel, which traveled along the front of the body from the abdomen and chest to the tip of the chin.

The Governing Vessel, which traveled along the back of the body from the waist and spine, over the back of the head and crown, to the philtrum.

The Penetrating Vessel, which ran through the center of the body from the anus to the crown of the head.

The two Linking Vessels. The two Qiao Vessels. And the Belt Vessel.

Together, they formed the Eight Extraordinary Vessels.

"What the hell are these? They're not blood vessels or nerves."

‘They were all pseudoscience on Earth...’

A blasphemous thought suddenly crossed Yeon Sowol's mind, and he hurriedly shook his head.

This was not Earth.

He had to seriously investigate this place while believing there really was something there.

After repeatedly checking, Yeon Sowol became certain he had memorized every meridian and acupoint drawn on the chart. He leaped to his feet.

"Huuuu... Hisss. Hoo."

Keeping up the breathing that had now become second nature, he slowly began the movements of the Willow Serenity Art.

"Huuuu!"

Kindling the inner fire.

A person could blow on a small spark and make it grow into a flame.

Likewise, they could blow breath into their body and make a fire grow within.

‘But how is that even possible? It can't be that there's an actual spark inside my body.’

With the curiosity unique to a person from the twenty-first century, Yeon Sowol closely observed every step of the process.

His sharp qi sense, which had impressed even Yi Yubaek, began to shine.

‘Ah. Breath isn't just air. Something unknown is mixed into it. Something similar to what this world calls essence, qi, and spirit.’

Air entered his lungs and left them again, but that energy was drawn into his lungs, passed through them, and settled deeper into his body.

Yeon Sowol watched its flow and movement even more carefully.

‘Ah. It flows around through breathing and movement.’

The energy that had settled inside him rose again like flying sparks along with the breathing and movements of the Willow Serenity Art, scattering throughout his body. Wherever it touched, tiny sparks appeared.

‘It's getting warmer. Little by little.’

Yeon Sowol began consciously guiding the energy that entered through his breath.

Then he realized something.

‘Ah. This is fire.’

The energy mixed into the air was hot, like flying sparks. When he gathered it in one place, it became a roaring flame.

A slight sense of awe took hold of Yeon Sowol.

‘This world is full of fire.’

The atmosphere was filled with low-density, burning sparks. By drawing them in through breathing and condensing them, he could kindle a fire inside his body.

‘But why is the world full of these sparks?’

Something he had learned in Earth science class suddenly came to mind.

「Cosmic background radiation. Heat released during the Big Bang and spread throughout the universe.」

"Ah."

Something like intuition flashed through Yeon Sowol's mind.

"Could these sparks be leftover heat from when this world was created?"

Come to think of it, Yi Yubaek had said something similar.

‘A person's essence, qi, and spirit are considered to be borrowed from heaven and earth. Originally, they are very pure and full of life. But after birth, they gradually cool and become tainted with turbid qi until they can no longer be used. When essence, qi, and spirit have completely cooled, become tainted, and stopped moving, only then does a person reach death.’

Seen that way, a person's life was like the leftover heat still remaining from the time they were made.

"If people are like that, couldn't the universe be the same?"

Perhaps this universe was also still full of the leftover heat from when it was created, and perhaps that was why it was alive.

Yeon Sowol did not know it yet, but people called that primordial qi.

The one and only qi from before the birth of the universe.

"So we can use it to revive the essence, qi, and spirit within us as they cool."

He had been tired, struggling, and scared the entire time...

Yet Yeon Sowol suddenly felt excited.

He was slowly uncovering the secrets of this world, which had once been completely incomprehensible.

The more he learned, the more the fear that filled his heart seemed to settle a little.

"Knowledge really is power. Right. There has to be something like this if I'm going to become a martial artist."

Yeon Sowol concentrated even harder and watched the movement of the energy.

Whoosh.

He gradually increased the flame he had condensed as much as possible, then carefully moved it.

"It can't stop for even a moment."

If he left the heated flame in one place, only the essence and qi there would become hot. If he neglected it, Yeon Sowol himself would become the next protagonist of the grotesque story Yi Yubaek had told him.

"Huuuu. Hngh!"

Using the breathing and movements of the Willow Serenity Art, Yeon Sowol kept the flame burning within his body in motion.

Like hot steam flowing through boiler pipes to warm a room, he sent the flame condensed through his breathing throughout his body, drew it back in, and gradually warmed his entire body to a mild heat.

Then he suddenly realized.

"Ah. This is... the Twelve Regular Meridians!"

As he sent the flame through his body, he could feel that its route remained somewhat fixed.

The paths the fire traveled through.

Those were the meridians of the Twelve Regular Meridians that Yeon Sowol had memorized so thoroughly.

"But why is the flow so poor?"

Yeon Sowol frowned.

By the time the flame he had gathered through so much breathing made two or three circuits through his body, it had scattered in every direction until he could barely find a trace of it.

Then Yeon Sowol had to gather the flame again.

He concentrated once more and contemplated his inner self.

This time, he wanted to see exactly how the flame traveled along the paths of the Twelve Regular Meridians.

"......Ah."

It did not take long for Yeon Sowol to understand the problem.

"The paths are a complete mess."

The twelve major meridians were paths through which hot fire had to pass.

But those paths were frozen cold. Waste matter had dried onto them in sticky layers, blocking the way, and impurities that had forced their way in allowed heat to leak elsewhere.

In some places, especially thick and sticky waste matter almost completely clogged the paths.

The flame seeped through the gaps and somehow passed through, but it lost a noticeable amount of heat every time.

The cold passages stole its heat, the blocked passages scattered it, and the punctured passages let it pour out. Of course the flame could not last long.

"This is awful."

Yeon Sowol looked down at his own body in horror.

"Was my body really this messed up?"

He suddenly recalled what the old man called Killing Demon had said on his first day in this world.

"Is that why he called it filthy water?"

Yeon Sowol contemplated the inside of his body with a queasy look.

‘I want to get rid of this...’

It had not bothered him when he was unaware of it, but once he noticed it, he could not stand it.

‘It's really bothering me.’

It was this filthy.

This broken.

The waste matter even wriggled as if it were alive.

‘I really hate this!’

Yeon Sowol focused on the waste matter inside his body with utter disgust.

He wanted to squeeze out every bit of waste matter and every impurity like popping pimples.

Then his qi sense touched an unusually large mass of waste matter.

"Hm?"

Yeon Sowol suddenly thought it seemed flat.

It looked as though a strand of thread fluttered from the flat piece of waste matter.

"This is...?"

Since it was inside his body, there was no need to touch it.

Yeon Sowol instinctively severed that thread.

Sizzle.

White smoke rose from his mouth and nose.

It smelled savory.

"It disappeared."

One clump of waste matter that had been stickily blocking the passage vanished. The passage was still cold, and impurities were still lodged there, but at least the flame passed more smoothly through that section.

"That works too?"

He hurriedly concentrated again.

He contemplated his inner self.

Waste matter. Impurities.

He searched for anything else that felt flat, as though it had a thread fluttering from it.

"There's one."

A smile spread across Yeon Sowol's face.

It may have been the first joyful smile he had worn since falling into this place.

<Someone drew fan art for us>

Thank you.

Footnotes:

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