The Price of the Left Hand

The numbness that started at the tip of his left hand climbed his elbow and coiled around his shoulder joint like a snake. Cha Yeonho caught his ragged breath, clenching and unclenching his left hand. Each knuckle had swollen taut, tinged red. When he tightened his grip on the scabbard with his right hand, his left trembled in compensation. Baek Miryeong snatched up his wrist. Her fingertip pressed hard into his radial artery.

"Cha Yeonho, answer me. Can you feel the temperature here?" "I can't feel anything."

Baek Miryeong stared straight into Yeonho's eyes. What settled there wasn't worry but a dry, clinical diagnosis. She pressed hard into the pressure point at his wrist once more. His shoulder throbbed, but the tip of his left hand didn't so much as twitch.

"Don't use this hand until you've secured the three day audit right. Even if the elders force a retest on you, you must not be the one holding the sword." "I stopped the settlement ceremony in An Sobin's place. That responsibility is mine to carry."

Cha Yeonho shook his head and forced his stiffened left hand toward the scabbard. Baek Miryeong knocked his arm aside and added in a low voice.

"Don't be stubborn. Your left hand's meridians are wrecked right now from absorbing the Reversal. Push any harder and you might never hold a sword again." "I know. But if I back down here, An Sobin's settlement will just continue. There's no way the weight of the Reversal Stone she'd have to bear is lighter than what's in my left hand."

Cha Yeonho pulled a bandage from his pocket and wound it tightly around his left hand. The sensation was still muffled. He gripped the sword's hilt firmly with his right hand. The Settlement Hall Elder climbed to the center of the sparring platform and cleared his throat. He kicked the fallen scabbard, sending it sliding toward Yeonho's feet. The sound of the scabbard rolling across the worn wooden floor rang out loudly.

"Cha Yeonho, the crime of breaking the forbidden precept and destroying the Settlement Stone is by no means light. However, in accordance with the sect code, you will be given the chance to prove your own skill through a retest. Right now, you will face the examiner named by the Transmission Elder and prove that your martial arts still follow the laws of Hoeryumun. If you lose, you are expelled on the spot."

Cha Yeonho drew his sword. Behind him, Do Gyeom cracked his knuckles and snickered.

"Senior disciple, can you even swing a sword properly with your left hand bound up like that? If the examiner cuts you, you'll really be thrown out." "Don't worry. I'll finish this quickly."

The examiner walked out to the center of the platform. He stood a head taller than Cha Yeonho, and the muscle in his shoulders looked built to withstand a Reversal. He held his sword at an angle and fixed his eyes on Yeonho's left side, as if he'd already spotted the injury. He closed in with quick footwork. Cha Yeonho let out a long breath. The memories of his past life and the movements of his present body were subtly out of sync. Yeonho sensed his left hand would be slow to respond. He drew his left foot back half a step to hold his center of balance. Just before the examiner's blade grazed his side, Yeonho struck the man's wrist pressure point with the flat of his blade. A dull impact rang out. The examiner's sword flew from his hand and sailed off the platform. Cha Yeonho's blade was already resting near the examiner's throat.

"Blade down. Match over."

Cha Yeonho tried to lower his sword. But the bandage wound around his left hand came loose, and his fingers locked up. The sword dropped to the floor with a thud. The audience stirred. Cha Yeonho tried to plant his hand on the floor to steady himself, but his knees shook. An elder rose from the judges' seat and pointed at Yeonho.

"Look at him! What kind of senior disciple of Hoeryumun can't even hold his own sword! This is a clear violation of the forbidden precept, and negligence in his training besides!" "No, that isn't negligence."

Baek Miryeong leapt up onto the sparring platform and steadied Yeonho's shoulder. She unwound the bandage on his left hand for all the elders to see. The swollen fingers and the blackened, dead pressure points lay bare before everyone's eyes.

"Moments ago, the senior disciple absorbed every bit of Reversal generated by the destruction of the Settlement Stone into his own left hand. If he hadn't, Junior Sister An Sobin, who was undergoing the settlement ceremony, would already have had her meridians severed and been left crippled. Are you elders truly invoking the sect's discipline right now to bury the senior disciple's sacrifice, the one that saved a disciple's life, under the charge of using a Reversal?"

The elders' faces hardened. The Settlement Hall Elder cleared his throat, his expression shifting.

"Sacrifice, is it. The settlement ceremony is a tradition of the sect. Even the senior disciple has no authority to halt the ceremony as he pleases." "Reexamine the authority of the Transmission Seat. The holder of Transmission bears the responsibility of taking on a disciple's Reversal in their place. Today, I merely fulfilled that responsibility."

Cha Yeonho rose unsteadily. Do Gyeom stepped over and caught his arm to support him. Do Gyeom sneered at the examiner.

"Did you hear that, honored examiner? The senior disciple's left hand was slow because of the Reversal, not for lack of skill. And yet you still went down on your knees. Doesn't that make this the senior disciple's clean win?"

At Do Gyeom's words, the disciples in the hall murmured among themselves. Cha Yeonho calmly pulled out a ledger and set it on the elders' table.

"This is the ledger recording the quantity of Reversal Stones and the internal energy spent today. I am invoking my three day audit right. Disclose the source of the Reversal Stones used in the settlement ceremony, and the total sum of Reversals the disciples have absorbed up to now. If what's recorded in this ledger differs from the actual internal energy spent, then you may expel me, and only then."

The elders looked flustered as they scanned the ledger. The Settlement Hall Elder nodded, reluctant.

"Fine. Three days. If no evidence turns up within that time, not only you but everyone who helped you will be punished according to the sect code."

Once the elders left, Do Gyeom clapped Yeonho on the back. He was smiling, but there was a strange glint of challenge in his eyes. Do Gyeom picked up Yeonho's sword and pressed it into his right hand.

"Senior disciple, you were really something today. But remember this. Now that you've stepped up to carry the responsibility of senior disciple, I can't just leave you be either."

Do Gyeom cracked his knuckles once more.

"The next ranking match for Transmission is in a week. This time, face me holding your sword properly with both hands, not just your left. If you can't manage even that much, you'd best hand the senior disciple's seat over to me."

Cha Yeonho looked at Do Gyeom. In him was a mix of inferiority that had lingered since childhood, and a desperate wish to be recognized as a fellow disciple. Cha Yeonho suppressed the pain in his left hand and answered calmly.

"I will. By then, you'll be in quite a bit of pain yourself."

Yeonho turned toward Baek Miryeong. She was already packing up her medical tools while checking his hand.

"Cha Yeonho, if you don't go to the infirmary right now, your left hand really will become useless." "I know. But it's three days. I have to go through every ledger within three days."

Cha Yeonho carefully cradled his left hand against his chest. The pain surged, but he couldn't stop. The fall of Hoeryumun wasn't simply a matter of the settlement ceremony. He had to tear out the sect code that ate away at the foundation from below, and the calculations of those who only looked out for themselves. On the way to the infirmary, Yeonho looked down at his left hand. He felt the faintest ripple of internal energy flowing at his fingertips. This was only the beginning.

"Miryeong, show me the ledgers first. I need to know where the Settlement Hall Elder hid the figures he skimmed off." "You're in no state for that right now." "I'm fine. There's still plenty left of the price my left hand has to pay."

Baek Miryeong sighed and gripped Yeonho's arm tightly. She opened the infirmary door and said coldly.

"You're not sleeping a wink tonight. I'm going to record every scream your hand lets out myself. That's the price you pay for being senior disciple."

Yeonho nodded. Through the doorway, the evening glow was settling over the worn roof of the Settlement Hall. Three days. In this short span of time, he had to overturn the sect's power, save An Sobin, and answer Do Gyeom's challenge besides.

He stepped into the infirmary. The air hung heavy with the mingled smell of old paper and ink. Yeonho opened the first ledger. It was filled with numbers from years of dark dealings the sect had kept hidden. He picked up a brush with his right hand. The delayed sensation in his left hand still tormented him, but Yeonho, without wavering, wrote his own name on the first line of the ledger. This was the first fight he had chosen.

Outside the door, Do Gyeom cracked his knuckles once more. It was no longer a threat. It was a signal announcing the head on confrontation to come. Yeonho steadied his breath and fixed his eyes on the ledger that held the fate of the sect in its pages. There was no room left to retreat now. He calculated the price his left hand would have to pay and, through the night, kept crossing out the numbers in the ledger. In three days, everything here had to change. That alone was the reason he had returned, and his only goal.

Yeonho's right hand stopped trembling and held the brush steady. The black ink soaking into the paper spread like a bloodstain. Outside the window, the irregular footsteps of the night patrolling Disciplinary disciples continued on and off. Yeonho closed the window and turned up the lamp in the room. The ledger's records were tampered with more meticulously than he'd expected. But the faint discrepancies in internal energy left in the cracks couldn't be hidden. Yeonho exhaled and turned the next page. On the desk lay a letter stamped with the Settlement Hall Elder's red seal. It was the notice summoning the audit meeting to be held in three days. Yeonho tapped the letter lightly with his fingertip. Time was running short.

"Senior disciple, the elders said all the ledgers must be collected by tomorrow morning."

At the sound of An Sobin's trembling voice from outside the door, Yeonho turned toward it. His left hand was still painfully numb, but his face held a quiet resolve. It was time to answer. He lifted the brush again. Breaking the stillness of the quiet night came the sound of ink spreading across paper. Yeonho didn't stop. This wasn't a mere record, it was the evidence that would shake Hoeryumun to its core, and the first step of the life he was starting anew.

In the darkness, the lamp flickered, stretching Yeonho's shadow long. Three days was far too short a time, but for him it was enough to overturn the world. He set An Sobin's voice aside and immersed himself in the ledger once more. The noise outside the door gradually faded, but Yeonho's hand moved faster still. Now everything would be decided by the tip of his brush. Yeonho sensed his fate and moved the brush toward the final page. The night grew deep, and the record went on.