Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I Was Strange Too

The young girl who would turn six this year, So Yul, woke from sleep.

The place where she had been struck by the switch for stealing candy still throbbed, making it hard to fall asleep.

‘Tch! He didn’t hit me when Shin oppa was there!’

Sleep refused to come at all. She lay there staring at the ceiling with wide, unblinking eyes for a long while.

Suddenly, she wanted to see the close oppa who lived next door.

‘Hehe, is Shin oppa sleeping?’

Because she was a girl, she did not know love.

And because of that, she could love purely.

-Mom, what is marriage?

-It means living together for your whole life.

I want to live with Shin oppa.

I want to eat together every day, hold hands and go play, and talk.

Sometimes he seems more like an unnie than an oppa, but when I see him training hard and stepping forward into dangerous things before anyone else, he is the coolest oppa of all.

『Yul-ah.』

“Yes, Mom.”

『Open the door for me.』

At her mother’s voice, the girl turned her head.

Her mother was sleeping soundly right beside her.

『It’s cold weather and my hands are frozen, so I can’t grasp the door ring.』

“...Mom?”

『Yes, it’s Mom.』

The place she turned her head to next was the lattice door covered in window paper.

There, a clear shadow stood without the slightest movement.

“Mom!”

She did not know the world, but she was not foolish.

The startled girl tried to wake her parents.

“Mom! Dad! Wake up!”

She pinched their faces with her small hands and shook their bodies wildly, but neither of them woke.

While the girl, shocked by their corpse-like appearance, broke into a cold sweat, the shadow beyond the window paper spoke again.

『Yul-ah, why won’t you open the door?』

『Is it all right if Mom freezes to death?』

“No! You’re not Mom!”

The moment she shouted at the top of her lungs, her head suddenly spun.

The severe dizziness felt as if insects were dancing inside her skull.

‘I have to wake Mom and Dad!’

Wake them quickly and ask them to drive the ghost away!

That fake imitating Mom...

...Fake?

...Is the Mom outside really fake, and the Mom lying here the real one?

‘Maybe it’s a ghost. A person wouldn’t lie there like they’re dead!’

Is that not it?

I don’t know.

Amid the confusion, the voice from outside came again.

『It’s cold, so cold I feel like my fingers will fall off.』

For some reason, the voice felt warm.

It was the voice of the Mom who always woke her and spoke to her affectionately.

‘It’s Mom!’

The girl whimpered.

She grasped the door ring and pulled with all her strength.

“I’ll open it now!”

The room door swung wide open.

『You opened it.』

『You opened it.』

『You opened it.』

‘It’ smiled and held out a hand to the girl.

『Yul-ah, let’s go to a good place with Mom.』

Where is the good place?

She wanted to ask back, but the girl could no longer think.

“Yes.”

She simply followed ‘Mom’s’ words.

“Mom.”

* * *

“Isn’t that the blanket and pillow Yul used!? Why don’t you remember!?”

I pointed at the bedding in the corner.

Three sets of bedding meant three people lived in this house, but Yul’s parents tilted their heads.

“When we woke up in the morning, it was spread out as if someone had left it behind in the room.”

“I’ve seen thieves who steal things my whole life, but this is the first time I’ve seen a thief who leaves things behind.”

The situation was turning strange.

I immediately ran to my father and asked about So Yul.

“So Yul?”

“You really don’t know? The house next door!”

“Ah, Brother So Cheong? Brother and his wife have never had children since long ago—what are you talking about?”

I went around the neighborhood asking the adults as well.

No one remembered, and it was not only So Yul who had disappeared.

‘Yoseok from the dumpling shop is gone.’

Cheonga and Guna from the cloth shop are gone too.

Yeokgae from the bookstore is gone.

Dani from the inn is gone, and Sanghyu from the willow house is gone.

‘Fuck!’

I searched the entire neighborhood but could not find them.

I also searched outside the village, the mountains and forests where children might go, but there was nothing but anxious frustration—no traces.

‘What on earth is going on!’

Just as I was about to vent my fury under a large tree, the schoolmaster came to mind.

-Power that can uproot mountains and qi that covers the world! You are truly the Chu Overlord. Why did you have to resemble even that personality? Of course, I do not mean that you look down on everyone. It is simply that there is a problem with your personality. Even if your talent pierces the heavens, if you cannot govern yourself, you will as a rule fail to achieve your will.

I slammed my head into the tree in front of me.

The sharp pain brought me back to my senses, and my head cooled.

‘Will I find them just by searching blindly? I need to grasp the situation and come up with a solution!’

What has happened now?

Many children have gone missing, and everyone except me cannot remember those children.

‘This is not an ordinary disappearance. It is an unrealistic disappearance.’

Let’s establish hypotheses one by one.

‘First, I am abnormal and the other people are normal.’

The missing children are imaginary friends I created or existences from my delusions, and I have only now come to my senses.

‘Yul’s bedding was still there. I am in my right mind, and people’s memories have been erased.’

Therefore, this hypothesis is discarded.

‘Second, in reality this world is not an orthodox martial arts worldview.’

The low peak of superhumans is merely the perspective of ordinary people, and in a hidden underside, existences like the Demonic Cult, mysterious sects, and cultivators reign as transcendent beings.

‘This has some possibility.’

The Demonic Cult kidnapped the children and erased people’s memories with drugs or demonic arts.

A cultivator kidnapped the children and erased people’s memories with Daoist techniques.

If the world’s standards are raised, the current situation is fully possible, but rather the options increase and it becomes difficult to guess the culprit.

‘The total number of missing children is 12. Why 12? Is it a good number for making one unit? Is that enough material for making pills? Whichever it is, there is a possibility of failure, so more numbers would be better—why didn’t they kidnap everyone?’

And why didn’t they erase only my memory?

Carrying thoughts complicated enough to burst, on the way home I discovered Yul’s parents.

“Why are there girls’ clothes in our house?”

“It’s enough to make a ghost weep.”

Like lightning striking in my head, yesterday’s ghost story came to mind.

-Did you know? There are lots of ghosts that wander around here and there. Among them there’s even a ghost that eats children from rural villages.

Doesn’t the current situation match that child’s story to an uncanny degree?

-It appears in the middle of the night, imitates a family member’s voice, and asks you to open the door. There’s a spell in the voice so you open the door without realizing it.

-If you get caught, you’re dragged to its hideout, buried in the ground with only your face out, and slowly have your life force sucked out.

-The scariest part is that it casts a spell on the entire village so no one knows the kidnapped child was taken, making everyone completely forget.

The children disappearing, and people being unable to remember the disappeared children—everything is the same.

‘Third, a wandering ghost kidnapped the children.’

The thought that a ghost couldn’t be real came out reflexively, and a hollow laugh escaped.

There is reincarnation, there is qi, there are martial arts—why wouldn’t there be ghosts?

However, because it was hard to fully believe, I tried to recall the child from yesterday.

‘...It doesn’t come to mind at all.’

My memory is such that once I see something, I rarely forget it.

Even trivial moments from my previous life are clear, yet the appearance of the child I saw just yesterday does not come to mind.

‘Ha.’

What was the voice like.

What were the manner of speaking and tone like.

What was the appearance like.

What were the clothes like, and what was the gender.

Only the ghost story that child told is engraved in my mind as ‘information.’

‘Is being bewitched by a ghost like this?’

If the child’s words are true, the kidnapped children are alive in the ghost’s hideout.

Also, since it kidnaps children every night, it will come today as well.

‘Even if I just wait in the room, the thing will appear on its own.’

Should I patrol the village at night?

No, the ghost might discover me first.

If I retreat out of unnecessary wariness, I will miss the chance forever.

‘The best is to wait inside the room and pounce the moment the thing comes.’

Whether the ghost will be visible to the eye.

Even if I see it, whether I can physically hit it.

Even if I can hit it, whether I can win—I know nothing.

After all, it is an existence I never even thought existed, and one I have never actually met.

‘Anyway, this is the only clue, and if it is the ghost’s doing, there is at least some hope.’

Better a ghost than the Demonic Cult, mysterious sects, or cultivators, where both location and the possibility of rescue are slim.

Of course, if the thing does not appear tonight, I will have to make a plan again.

‘But why is only my memory fine?’

Does a brain that has recalled a previous life have some kind of privilege in terms of memory?

I don’t know. For now, I am simply grateful.

“Father, are you going to the gambling den today as well?”

“Huh? Ah, yes! C-can’t I go?”

“Please go carefully.”

That evening, I saw my father off.

Unlike usual, my father did not go out right away but paused for a moment, then smiled and handed me something.

“Son, it’s a gift.”

It was two books.

The moment I saw the titles on the covers, I immediately realized what the gift was.

[Three Talents Sword Technique]

[Taiji Tu-Nap Method]

The father who had handed over the martial arts manuals scratched his head as if embarrassed.

“You were saving money because you wanted to buy martial arts manuals, right? Dad earned some money this time and bought them.”

Because I had intended to buy martial arts manuals, I had already looked into everything.

The Three Talents Sword Technique is barely even worth calling a martial art—nothing more than an introductory book for laying the foundation of swordsmanship.

The Taiji Tu-Nap Method is embarrassing to even call a heart method—nothing more than a breathing technique at the level of health exercises.

“How much did you pay for them?”

“Two nyang of silver each. Since Dad is illiterate, I asked an acquaintance I gamble with to buy them. That person has a wide network and is good at obtaining all sorts of things. I asked him to pick good ones—are they decent manuals?”

Even though they were only worth a hundred iron nyang, he had been overcharged twenty times.

“Yes, they’re fine.”

But what of it.

My heart was overflowing like this.

When I hugged my father tightly, he too burst into a hearty laugh and hugged me tightly back.

“Thank you, Father.”

* * *

The night left alone after Father went to the gambling den.

Early evening was too early a time for a ghost to appear, so while waiting for the thing I lit a candle and quietly read the martial arts manuals.

“Vertical slash’s Mount Tai Pressing Down, horizontal slash’s Horizontal Sweep of a Thousand Armies, thrust’s Immortal Pointing the Way.”

As expected, the Three Talents Sword Technique consisted of only three techniques.

The explanations with grandiose rhetoric attached were uncomfortable to read, making me frown, and summarized, it was nothing more than a posture correction book that wrote what the correct posture was when demonstrating three types of slashes.

‘The Taiji Tu-Nap Method is the same.’

How to sit in the lotus position.

What kind of breathing can lead qi.

Whether the energy led that way can be guided to the dantian to fully awaken and activate the dantian.

[Qi exists everywhere. Humans are born with it innately, all living things possess it, and it permeates this land and all things under heaven and earth. All breathing methods are ways to feel the natural earth qi dwelling in our breath and make it our own.]

Obvious stories.

Still, because they were unfamiliar concepts, they were somewhat interesting.

[First, we cannot feel qi. Just as a fish cannot feel water, because all things have energy, we cannot feel it. Therefore, the very first thing is to become aware of the energy.]

The possibility was low, but just in case it might help, I tried following along with a sliver of expectation.

[Slowly exhale and inhale. Extremely slowly, feel the energy contained within. If you have felt it, send your will to it. Energy is drawn by and reacts to heart force, so if you pour your mind into it, you can move the energy.]

I sat in the lotus position.

I closed my eyes and slowly inhaled and exhaled.

[If you have moved the energy, move it below the navel, to the lower abdomen. There is the framework of the dantian. Continuously pour energy to activate and temper the dantian. If you do so, a dantian will form.]

I strained to feel the energy dwelling in the breath.

What is different about the inhaled breath and the exhaled breath.

I concentrated to find the energy that would be dwelling within.

[If a dantian has formed, accumulate the energy there. Move the accumulated energy with heart force, following the meridians to circulate once around the entire body and lead it back to the dantian. The energy that has traveled throughout the body has its impurities removed and heart force dwelling in it, becoming pure, and this soon leads to the strengthening of internal power.]

Something feels strange.

When I became conscious of the breathing I was not normally conscious of, I felt that the air of the world was different from usual.

‘...The air has not changed.’

It is different from the air of my previous life that I know.

The moment I recognized that difference, I felt the qi dwelling in the breath.

When I resolved to move it, it moved, and when I guided it to the dantian, the lower abdomen grew hot and something like a small bead settled within me.

‘Breathe, draw qi, and accumulate it in the dantian.’

I moved the accumulated energy and ran it through the meridians of the entire body.

Even though I had not studied the meridians, instinct guided the energy on its own, I accumulated it, and the bead-like dantian gradually widened.

‘Ah.’

The energy entering through the breath illuminates the interior.

Through the meridians, blood vessels, heart, lungs, brain, spinal cord, nerves of the entire body, and muscle fibers, the existence called ‘I’ is clearly imprinted upon my mind.

It is not that my mind moves the energy.

My mind is the energy, and the energy is my mind.

As if becoming one, riding the energy dwelling in all things under heaven and earth, I feel the surroundings.

The village I love.

The desolate fields after the harvest has ended.

The eight passes that make peddlers weep.

Beyond that, countless villages and a massive capital city.

The vast territory called the Central Plains.

And now I have become one with the universe where countless stars twinkle and the Milky Way crosses.

In the midst of the trance, a sudden impact brought me to my senses.

When I opened my eyes, the candle had nearly burned out and the flame flickered as if it would go out at any moment.

“...”

Below the navel, the cosmic energy I had felt in the trance had settled.

I went out to the yard, grasped a stone, drew out the energy, and put strength into my hand—it crumbled like sand.

“The basic is three years, a peerless heart method is two years, and talent that can become the number one under heaven is one year.”

A hollow laugh escaped.

“Then what is one shichen?”