The Muddied Yard Before the Floodgate

Heavy rain poured into the muddied front yard before the floodgate. Cha Yeonho rubbed the vein on the back of his left hand with his thumb. A pale ache climbed up his nerves and pressed down on his shoulder. Before him, Im Bokjin stepped backward, hiding a worn leather pouch behind his back. Through the gap in the pouch, a bundle of papers stamped with a red seal peeked out, damp with rain. It was a toll ledger that should have carried reconstruction funds bound for the main sect, but instead held a merchant guild's secret bribes tucked inside. Im Bokjin planted his foot on a rock and rose. Cha Yeonho saw the weight shift onto his front foot and dropped his stance low. Using Hoeryu Gate's footwork, a form built to ride the flow, he caught Im Bokjin's right arm and broke his balance. As Im Bokjin staggered, Cha Yeonho struck his chin with his left hand, forcing his gaze upward. Catching the instant Im Bokjin's breath cut off, he pressed his palm flat against the man's chest. A dull sound rang out, bone meeting bone. The pain of the rebound, force returning against him, stabbed through his shoulder, but Cha Yeonho's expression didn't change.

"What exactly is this. Did you divert the sect's reconstruction funds and collude with the merchant guild?"

The pouch fell from Im Bokjin's hand. Seok Muan snatched the leather pouch up from the muddy ground and shook off the rainwater. He scanned the ledger's contents, then spat sharply at Cha Yeonho.

"The wages written in this ledger are from last month. The merchant guild keeps pressing us to fix the floodgate faster, but our workers haven't seen a coin in their hands."

Cha Yeonho let his left hand drop and set the dislocated joint back in place. He drew out a gold token and a silk pouch from inside his robe, money he'd set aside for the main sect's training fund. It was the money Baek Miryeong had given him to buy medicinal herbs for the main sect. Using it now meant this quarter's training results for the sect could no longer be guaranteed. Cha Yeonho handed the pouch to Seok Muan.

"Use this first to settle the medical costs and the overdue wages. I'll make the report to the main sect myself."

Seok Muan looked back and forth between the pouch in Cha Yeonho's hand, his calloused palm, and the sect emblem soaked through with rain. Breathing hard, he took the pouch and raised the rain soaked purse over his head, shouting to the murmuring workers.

"Listen up, all of you! This money today came from that senior disciple emptying his own training fund! This isn't an empty oath, this is him showing us trust through wages and medical costs! Are you ready to pull the ropes?"

The rough laborers set down their hoes one by one, gripped the ropes, and answered with heavy voices.

"Senior disciple, if this rope snaps, our lives snap with it. You trusted us, so we'll hold this floodgate tight and keep it from breaking."

Seok Muan turned back and went to the injured carpenter. As he handed over medicine money and wages, the murmuring around them settled. The workers' hostility faded and something like trust settled in its place. Just then, a metallic voice came from behind them.

"Hoeryu Gate's senior disciple breaking his own rice bowl to feed the laborers. What a fine sight to watch."

A transmitted disciple of the Iron Gate Hall leaned against a tall rock upstream of the floodgate, looking down at the commotion. He scanned the exits of the space where a fight might break out and counted how many sect disciples were present to serve as witnesses. He checked the mud, stepped only where he wouldn't slip, and came down mocking them.

"Hoeryu Gate had a fine excuse for seizing control of the floodgate. But if you fail to control the water level this monsoon season and the farms downstream flood, will you shift the blame onto these laborers then too?"

The Iron Gate Hall man stopped in front of Cha Yeonho and provoked him. Instead of answering, Cha Yeonho gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist.

"We came here to guard this floodgate. We don't run things so loosely that we need your surveillance."

The Iron Gate Hall man sneered and pulled a formal letter from his robe, holding it up before Cha Yeonho's eyes.

"The right to manage Gugok Floodgate should be decided through fair competition. Tomorrow at noon, right here, we'll hold a martial contest. If we win, we take control of the floodgate. If we lose, Hoeryu Gate withdraws immediately. Of course, before that, the compensation owed to the laborers must be proven with a ledger signed by your sect leader personally."

It was political pressure meant to prove Hoeryu Gate's incompetence. Cha Yeonho stared for a long moment at the spot where the man had vanished, and Seok Muan came up beside him and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Those men aren't here to help us. They came to watch us fall apart. If we have to work under the same sky as people like that, don't we need some kind of countermeasure of our own?"

What Seok Muan pointed to was the spot where the river churned in a violent whirlpool. Cha Yeonho shook his head. What he needed was the skill to get the floodgate working perfectly by noon tomorrow.

"Do we have enough tools for repairs?"

Seok Muan smiled and showed his calloused palms.

"Hands matter more than tools. While they're preparing for the contest, we'll pull the ropes and secure the floodgate. That's how we protect this sect."

Cha Yeonho clenched his left hand. He looked down at Iron Gate Hall's challenge and the toll ledger he'd seized from Im Bokjin. In the blank space of the ledger was a memo bearing the local merchant guild's seal. It was an order to force the floodgate open and flood the granary lands downstream. It was a fight that put the sect's survival on the line, and a debt that carried the lives of the entire region with it. Cha Yeonho pressed the ledger into Seok Muan's hands.

"Hold onto this ledger. It's evidence we need to make public before tomorrow's contest begins."

Seok Muan nodded. Cha Yeonho walked toward the floodgate, visible through the sheets of rain. The gears began to turn with a creaking groan. Cha Yeonho placed his hand on the floodgate's pillar and steadied his breath. The collapse point he'd seen in his past life, the position of the worn bolts, and the flow of force as the workers pulled the ropes were the only reality that mattered now.

Cha Yeonho called for An Sobin. Her eyes were hollow from sorting through medical records.

"Miss An, can you measure the pressure on the floodgate? If the force on the ropes falls out of alignment, the whole thing will give way."

An Sobin read the numbers on the water gauge with trembling hands.

"Senior disciple, the water level has passed the danger threshold. If we don't pull the ropes right now, the floodgate will burst."

Cha Yeonho rolled up his sleeves.

"Seok Muan, give me five more men besides myself. I'll take the last rope, the one under the most strain."

He moved to the point bearing the greatest load. He planted his feet and held his breath. Blood seeped from the hand gripping the rope. The workers pulled the ropes together in unison. His muscles screamed. The rebound pain gripped his heart, but he didn't move his feet. The floodgate pushed back with a deafening clash of metal against metal that tore through the wind and rain. Cha Yeonho pulled the rope with everything he had.

After a long, grueling struggle, the floodgate closed. The rushing water was cut off, and stillness settled in. The workers sank to the ground, gasping for breath. Cha Yeonho's own legs nearly gave out beneath him. Night deepened and the rain eased, but the sound of water leaking through the gaps in the floodgate still reached his ears. Cha Yeonho headed for the archive. The ledger seized from Im Bokjin and the repair cost statement lay waiting there. Lighting a candle and taking up a pen, he spoke.

"Once tomorrow's contest is over, I'll submit this ledger to the central office of the Oro Genealogy Registry. I intend for the public judgment Iron Gate Hall has arranged to become evidence that works in our favor instead."

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded and Jin Mugyeol entered. His face had gone pale, and he held out a letter bearing Elder Choi Yul's seal.

"Senior disciple, Elder Choi Yul has sent word demanding you return to the main sect at once. He says paying the workers today was a violation of the code, and orders that all your authority be stripped and that you be brought before the sect leader immediately."

Cha Yeonho set the ledger down on the table. Black ink stains spread across the page, not yet dry. He looked at Jin Mugyeol and asked, his voice calm.

"If I go back to the main sect tonight, will I be able to come back out here again?"

Jin Mugyeol bowed his head instead of answering. Cha Yeonho looked through the gap in the clouds outside the window at the faint moon. Should he return to the main sect and accept the punishment, or stay here and prepare for tomorrow's contest. Before Jin Mugyeol left, Cha Yeonho caught his sleeve and murmured low.

"Mugyeol, go back and tell the elders. I'm a disciple of Hoeryu Gate protecting a floodgate, not a dog guarding the elders' comfort. Tomorrow at noon, the contest that takes place here won't be a simple fight. It will be a test that decides the sect's future."

Jin Mugyeol's eyes shook. He bit his rain soaked lips and nodded. Cha Yeonho folded the ledger, tucked it into his robe, and patted Jin Mugyeol's shoulder.

"I'm not going back. Tell the elders that the contest will be held here tomorrow at noon. Tell them I'll prove it myself."

Jin Mugyeol looked at the ledger with a flustered expression. It was a new draft of code revisions bearing the elders' seals, one that would overturn Hoeryu Gate's entire reconstruction policy.

"Senior disciple, this is open defiance! Can you withstand the elders' wrath? You'll be dragged back at once."

Jin Mugyeol wiped away sweat mixed with rain and cried out. Instead of answering, Cha Yeonho folded the still damp ink paper firmly and pressed it into his hands.

"It's not defiance. It's proof. Hold your brush steady so it doesn't shake when you write."

"My hands... I can't tell if it's the rain or fear."

Jin Mugyeol's fingertips trembled faintly. Cha Yeonho pressed down heavily on his shoulder.

"Just understand that the trembling is the same as the trembling in the hands of the people holding this floodgate together."

Cha Yeonho looked straight into Jin Mugyeol's eyes and continued.

"Take this to the main sect and read it aloud before the elders. Why I have to protect this floodgate, why the workers' wages matter more than the sect's martial arts, you're the one who has to testify to that yourself."

Jin Mugyeol hesitated for a moment, then shoved the papers deep into his robe and ran off into the rain. Left alone in the empty archive, Cha Yeonho looked at the candle flame. He suppressed the pain in his left hand and stepped outside the floodgate. In the darkness, Iron Gate Hall's spies stood guard at the entrance. Instead of drawing his sword, Cha Yeonho gripped the ledger tight. The contest had already begun. His toes dug deep into the mud. Tomorrow at noon, either the floodgate would hold, or someone would fall. One of the two was certain to happen.

Cha Yeonho drew a deep breath and stepped forward into the cold rain. It was time to prove that the skill to repair a floodgate and the rhythm of workers rotating their shifts should come before the sect's martial arts. In the darkness, he set his left hand's joints back in place once more and fixed his gaze on the place where the contest would be held. Victory and defeat were already written in the ledger. He walked in silence through the rain toward the highest point of the floodgate. From up there, looking down, the floodgate no longer looked like a crumbling ruin but like a vast fortress wall holding up a new tomorrow. The Iron Gate Hall spies preparing for the contest didn't see him. Cha Yeonho waited quietly for the battle to come.