Chapter 16: First Lesson

"Four days," Seo-rin said.

She’d figured it out in about the time it takes to tie a sandal. Abacus back in her lap, sitting cross-legged on her wrecked bed, still naked, hair still everywhere, flicking beads like her life depended on it.

"The Boar’s men drink at the east docks every night. They ask around for maybe three days. Somebody sells you for a few coppers on the fourth. Probably a laundry lady." Clack. "Then they wait for you somewhere dark."

"Four days."

"Three, if you’re stupid and go near the docks."

"And if I just... don’t leave the inn?"

She looked at me over the abacus. "Then they come into the inn. And the owner calls the magistrate. And the magistrate sends a clerk to write it down. And that clerk is Seo Dong-min."

Yeon-hee’s husband.

I put my face in my hands.

"So I need to be able to take a beating from five or six dock thugs. In four days."

"You need to not get your legs broken," Seo-rin said. "That’s different. Run. Hide. Fight dirty. I don’t care. But you’re Third-rate with a lot of loose yin sloshing around in you, and loose yin doesn’t stop a club." Clack. "You need someone who knows how to refine it."

I lifted my head.

Instructor Cha.

First lesson. Tonight.

"...I might know someone," I said.

Seo-rin’s eyes narrowed. "The deputy headmaster’s wife. The remedial lessons."

"How do you know about—"

"I know everything." She went back to her beads. "Go. Get stronger. And Baek Mu-jin?"

"Yeah?"

She didn’t look up. "Don’t you dare get your legs broken. I’m not done with you."

The east training hall was empty after the last bell. Every lantern out except one, at the very end of the hallway, glowing under her door.

I knocked.

"Come."

That word. Every time.

She was standing in the middle of the polished floor this time, not sitting on her desk. Practice uniform. Tight black sash. Ponytail high. Barefoot. She had two wooden practice swords, one in each hand, and she tossed one at me the second I walked in.

I caught it. Barely.

"Better," she said. "Three days ago you’d have caught it with your face."

[Target Detected.]

"Close the door."

I closed the door.

"Attack me."

"What?"

"You heard me." She stood there, sword hanging loose at her side, like she was waiting for a bus. "Attack me. Anything you want."

Okay.

I went for her shoulder. Clean, fast, everything the old Mu-jin drilled into this body.

And then I was on my back on the straw mat again, staring up at the ceiling beams, my sword sliding across the floor, her bare foot on my chest.

She tilted her head.

"Two seconds," she said. "Last time, one."

I’ll take it.

"Up."

We did that maybe twenty more times. Every time, I went down. Every time, she said a number. Two seconds. Two. Three. Two. Three. By the end my whole body was screaming, my practice whites were soaked through with sweat, and I’d learned exactly nothing except that Instructor Cha Mi-ran smelled like jasmine and violence.

The last time she put me down, she didn’t step back.

She knelt next to me on the mat. Put her palm flat on my stomach. Right below my belly button.

On my dantian.

"Breathe," she said.

I breathed.

Her hand pushed. Just a little. A thin thread of her own qi slipped into me — cold, sharp, like a needle made of ice — and went straight down into the warm swirling mess in my belly.

I gasped.

She went very still.

"...Four," she said quietly. "There are four of them now."

I didn’t say anything.

"Three days ago it was two. Water and sand. Now there’s ink. And something cold. Like metal." Her eyes moved slowly up to my face. "Four women. In three days."

"...Five, technically. If you count the one before I got to the inn. But she didn’t—"

"Shut up."

I shut up.

Her hand stayed on my stomach. Her qi kept moving around inside me. Poking. Touching each kind of yin, one at a time, like she was tasting soup.

"You’re wasting most of it," she said. "It’s just sitting there. Fighting itself. Water doesn’t like sand. Ink doesn’t like metal. They’re all different shapes and you’re trying to stuff them into one jar."

"So what do I do?"

"You don’t stuff them." She pressed down. "You braid them."

And then she showed me.

I don’t know how to explain it. Her qi was like fingers inside my dantian. She took a thread of Yeon-hee’s warm water and a thread of Ayla’s hot wind and twisted them together, slowly, until they stopped fighting and started spinning the same direction. Then she added Seo-rin’s cold coins. Then Madam Gwak’s ink.

It hurt. Then it really hurt. Then it stopped hurting and turned into something else. A warmth that went all the way down my legs and all the way up into my fingertips.

[Refinement method acquired: Four-Strand Braid.]

[Refinement speed increased.]

"Oh," I breathed.

"Mm." Her voice had gotten lower. A lot lower. "Now you do it. Alone. Every morning, every night. Braid them before they settle. You’ll be a solid Third-rate by the end of the month. Maybe touching Second-rate by summer."

Not a hero. Not a genius. Just... solid. Enough.

Enough to not get my legs broken.

I looked up at her.

She was still kneeling there with her hand on my stomach. But her face had changed. The cold instructor face was gone. Her cheeks were pink. Her lips were parted. And she was breathing almost as hard as I was.

"You felt all of them," I said. "All four. Through your hand."

"...Yes."

"What did it feel like?"

She didn’t answer for a long time.

"Warm," she finally said. "It’s been six years since anything felt warm."

[Desire +25.]

Her hand slid. Just a little. Down. Off my dantian. Onto my belt.

She stopped there.

And looked at me.

"I told you," she said, very quietly, "to tell me how you were doing it. Or show me."

My heart was going so hard I could hear it.

"Which do you prefer, Instructor?"

She bit her dark red lip.

And then, from out in the hallway, the slowest, shuffliest footsteps in the history of the Central Plains.

Shuffle. Shuffle. Tap of a cane.

Shuffle. Shuffle.

"Mi-ran?" An old, creaky voice. "Mi-ran, are you still here, my dear? I saw a light."

She yanked her hand back like my belt was on fire.

Deputy Headmaster Ryu.

Her husband.

"Yes, husband!" she called, voice perfectly normal, perfectly cold, perfect instructor. Her face was bright red. "Remedial lesson! Almost finished!"

"Ah, good, good. Very dedicated. Don’t stay too late, my dear. Your old husband needs his tea before the bell."

Shuffle. Shuffle. Tap.

Shuffle.

Gone.

We both stared at the door for a long time.

Then she started laughing. Silently. Shoulders shaking. Hand over her mouth.

"Three evenings from now," she said, standing up and smoothing her uniform. "Same time. Bring your sword. And Baek Mu-jin—"

She leaned down. Close. Her ponytail fell over her shoulder and brushed my cheek, the same way it did the first time.

"Next time," she whispered, "I’m going to choose ’show me.’"

Then she walked out to go make her husband his tea.

I walked home in a daze.

My legs felt amazing. Light. Warm. The braid was still turning slowly in my belly, like a waterwheel. I was so busy feeling it that I didn’t really notice where I was walking.

The ferry was closed. The last one had gone.

So I took the long way. Over the stone bridge. Along the river.

Past the east docks.

I didn’t think about it. I was thinking about Instructor Cha’s hand on my belt. About "show me." About whether I could make it back to the inn in time for Ayla to still be awake.

The alley between two warehouses was dark. It smelled like fish guts and rope.

I was halfway through it when I heard a whistle.

Short. Sharp.

I stopped.

A shape stepped out of the dark at the far end of the alley. Big. Wide. Holding a club.

Another one behind me.

Then another one, dropping down off a stack of crates on my left.

"Well, well," said the big one. He had a tattoo of a boar on his neck. "Look what floated down the river."

Seo-rin said four days.

She said three if I was stupid.

I guess I was stupid.