Chương 9: Two Steps Forwards

When Mu-cheon returned an hour later with the copper, he found Chae-ha sitting on the floor. The young man came bearing ten long strings of coins, bound together tightly into two bundles of five. The young girl, on the other hand, was holding a sewing needle, the hem of her robes, and between her teeth – a single copper coin. He watched in amazement as she deftly sewed a vertical line of thread into the hem to create a pocket, dropped the coin inside, and sewed the opening shut.

The grin she gave him when she looked up was infectious.

"Thank goodness you're here, senior brother! I was just about out of coins." She stood up, brushed herself off, and gave a little twirl. The two front panels of her robe split apart and rose noticeably higher than the others, wrapping around her slightly as she came to a stop. A moment later they settled back into place, causing the gap to disappear beneath the overlapping folds. Mu-cheon set the copper bundles down on her desk, the coins clanking noisily as they settled.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Making the hems of my robes heavier – and separating the panels, so they can move independently."

"Yes, I can see that. I mean…" he paused for a moment and then shook his head.

"I guess what I should have asked is, 'little sister, why are you doing this?'"" Because now, I don't need to move as much to create the illusion. Watch this." Chae-ha backed away from him a bit before stepping forward sharply. As she did, the young girl gave the front panels of her robe a little flick with her wrist. They billowed out towards him, floating momentarily in the air. Not this time, the young man thought, grimly.

The robes partially blocked his view, but he clearly saw her lunging behind them, and he knew it was a trick. He turned to the side to grab her wrist as she tried to pin his sleeve again. But when the robes settled down, he was left holding empty air. She had barely moved – but he had turned and exposed his side to her. His face flushed crimson as he brought his raised hand back to his mouth, trying to cover his embarrassment with a fake cough.

"Thanks to the extra weight, I can keep the robes moving longer. And with the separation, I can manipulate the panels independently! I can push them with my ankle, pull them with my hands, swing my hips, even spin around – all to make them move in different ways." As she spoke, Chae-ha briefly acted out the motions, demonstrating the new behavior.

"There won't just be one Phantom Step anymore, senior brother. Once I'm done sewing, this technique will have a new name: the Baek-pal Hwan-yeong-bo. The 108 Phantom Steps." The Inner Disciple's lips parted in astonishment.

"You've created 108 different steps already?!"

"Well, no," Chae-ha admitted.

"So far, I've created two. But my opponents won't know that! And…well…I'm planning to make more..." Mu-cheon stared at her again like she had gone insane, before letting out a small chuckle that slowly grew into a hearty laugh. As he finished, the young man shook his head again, this time in admiration. A small smile lingered on his lips.

"For five years, little sister, I've had to stand by helplessly and regret my part in depriving you of your future. Now, I'm standing here helplessly watching you reclaim it. I can't believe I'm starting to think that this might actually be possible." Chae-ha suddenly grew quiet.

"You know you…don't have to just stand by, Mu-cheon," she almost whispered back. She looked up at him earnestly, her eyes pleading.

"Help me practice, senior brother. Like we did before. I've never once forgotten my promise to help you in return." Mu-cheon's face drained of blood at the request, his expression turning dark for a moment before he quickly caught himself and forced the smile back onto his face.

"Little sister, I…"

"It wasn't your fault," the young girl said firmly.

"None of us knew. And it doesn't matter anymore, anyways. All that matters now is that we move forwards. That I…move forwards." Her lip quivered with unexpected emotion.

"I'm trying to do that, but it's hard, all alone. I could really use a hand." The forced smile on Mu-cheon's face softened back into something genuine.

"I guess I should thank that assassin. Whatever else his intentions were, it seems like he gave me back my little sister. I missed you, Chae-ha." Chae-ha lunged forward and hugged him, burying her head in his chest to hide the tears welling up in her eyes. When she pulled back, the only evidence that remained was a small, damp patch left behind on his robes. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"You didn't see that," she said, blushing furiously. Mu-cheon nodded knowingly.

"Indeed. It was quite an impressive illusion. So…when do we start?" Chae-ha straightened her back and grinned at him, dropping her voice artificially deep.

"I'll meet you here at midnight, senior brother." The next day, the third floor of the Archives was silent – except for the inky swish of Chae-ha's brush. Her limbs were still aching from her midnight practice session with Mu-cheon, but she did her best to ignore the pain. Before her sat a half-finished report on the rising price of salt, a development almost certainly driven by market manipulation. As she wrote, a chill ran down her spine. She felt a familiar presence gliding towards her desk.

The man moved silently across the thick reed mats, until she could feel him looming over her shoulder, critiquing her work.

"You're using too much ink on the headers," Elder Gwak remarked, his voice soft but authoritative.

"Paper is normally the main expense, but the soot for the inkwells has doubled in price since the Meng-shan took control of the southern timber-runs." Chae-ha paused, her brush hovering a hair's breadth above the page.

"The edges of the scrolls are the most exposed during storage, and I noticed there's been a trend of the headers fading. If we lose identifying information, the cost of a re-audit will be a lot more than three coppers' worth of soot." Elder Gwak moved to her side, his keen eyes taking in the steel needle currently pinning her top-knot in place. He reached out a leathery hand over her workbench, and set down a small, rectangular block of polished wood.

Carved into its face, in sharp relief, was a single character: 限 (Han) Her surname. Not the typical character that meant "Greatness" and adorned the halls of high-born families. The one she had inherited from her father, which meant "boundary" or "limit." She looked at the carved seal, and then back at the elder.

"Why is this here?"

"It seems someone else within the sect has also recognized your talents," Elder Gwak replied.

"Your report on the Yangliu iron discrepancies reached the Obsidian Palace. Most men look at a financial report and see meaningless numbers, but…the Sect Leader looked at your work, and saw a weapon he could use. He has asked for you to be promoted to junior Inspector."

"I'm being…promoted? To an Inspector?" The old man nodded solemnly.

"You are no longer responsible for reviewing the sect's history. You are now tasked with protecting its future." He gestured towards the seal.

"Corruption is like rot in the foundation of a house. It is quiet, slow, and by the time you see the cracks – the structure is already compromised. Your job is to find the rot before those cracks start appearing." The elder leaned in, his shadow falling over her workstation as he continued.

"In about thirty days, the quarterly delegation leaves for Mt. Culai. The Sect Leader wants you to go with them. When you arrive at the Yangliu branch, you are to perform a full, unannounced audit of their books."

"One month," Chae-ha whispered, her mind already whirring.

"Thirty days to prepare. To study the local economy and trade routes. To identify which records to check first."

"Use this month wisely, girl. Work on your... bookkeeping. And whatever else it is you've been practicing on that balcony." The old man straightened his back, looking at her with a flicker of something that might have been pride. Chae-ha felt her face flush at his acknowledgment. Her hand self-consciously reached for the needle in her hair.

"You've found a weapon all your own. It is unconventional, but it is yours. Prove the Sect Leader was right to trust the insight of a clerk over the instincts of a disciple." The young girl picked up the seal, heavy with the weight of the responsibility it conferred, and took a deep breath. She looked at the steel needles on her desk, and then back to the Archive Elder.

"I won't let you down, elder."

"It's not me you have to worry about," Elder Gwak responded dryly.

"If you disappoint the Sect Leader, there will be no force under the heavens that can save you. But…I'm not concerned. You've always exceeded my expectations, Chae-ha," he murmured softly.

"Even when it comes to the amount of ink you use in the headers." That evening, the sun had long since set, and Chae-ha was preparing for bed. She shook the braid out of her hair as she lay down, pulling the scratchy woolen blanket over her chin in an attempt to block out the mountain's chill. It had been a full day. The visit from Elder Gwak still felt almost surreal. Afterwards, she'd finished sewing the last of the coins into her robes, and had some success training her new-and-improved Phantom Steps.

By all rights, she should be content. No, more than that – she should be ecstatic. But her traitorous mind simply refused to stop working on the second of the two major problems she had identified a few days before. For her version of Cham-jeom-sul – the Art of the Penetrating Point – to work, she needed more than just medical theory. She needed to build muscle memory. She needed to practice. But how could she practice piercing arteries and pinning tendons without breaking her training partners?

She certainly couldn't ask that of Mu-cheon. The young girl felt her eyelids begin to droop as the warmth from the blanket started to seep into her bones. Drowsily, she wondered how others had dealt with this problem. Surely, she couldn't be the first person needing to practice things like this. Who else would… Chae-ha sat up straight and gasped, shocked awake by the answer that came to her.

"They have corpses in the Medical Pavilion."