The Mud That Gripped His Ankles

Mud climbed up his boots and gripped his ankles. The turbid water pouring beneath the floodgate looked ready to breach the bank at any moment. Cha Yeonho rubbed his stiffened right shoulder and checked the joints of the floodgate. Beside him, Baek Miryeong held out a leather pouch containing the winter medicine fund for the main sect's trainees.

"If you spend this money, treatment for the disciples who get injured this winter will be delayed. Senior brother, what kind of calculation is this. This is selling off the sect's future."

Instead of answering, Cha Yeonho took the pouch and walked over to the foreman of the laborers. He checked the men's hands. They were full of cuts from the ropes. Yeonho opened the pouch and pressed strings of coins into their hands.

"As of today, every unpaid wage has been settled. From now on I will act trusting the value of your labor, not the name of the sect."

Just then the sound of boots came from the hill. It was Nam Gyuhan of Cheolmungwan. He surveyed the site and counted the laborers. His gaze lingered on Cha Yeonho's empty pouch. Nam Gyuhan positioned two disciples behind him and spoke in a sharp voice.

"Clerk Cha, is this how Hoeryu Gate claims to be rebuilding itself. Handing pennies to starving laborers and using it to claim the grand cause of floodgate repair. From Cheolmungwan's point of view, this is plainly sabotage."

Cha Yeonho brushed off the wet mud. He looked at the witnesses standing behind Nam Gyuhan.

"We're not securing a cause here, we're securing survival. If this floodgate collapses, it won't just flood Hoeryu Gate, it will flood the downstream villages that your Cheolmungwan is supposed to protect. And you're still going on about ledgers and who's responsible for repair costs, brother Nam?"

Nam Gyuhan frowned and demanded an open competition in front of the laborers.

"Here's my proposal. Each of us uses our own martial art to distribute the load on the floodgate, and the laborers judge who repairs it more solidly in less time. If the result is reported to the auditor of the Oro Genealogy Institute, it will make clear whether Hoeryu Gate's right to protect this floodgate is legitimate or not. I won't bring up the old suspicions about your family. Prove yourself only by the skill you show here today."

Cha Yeonho accepted the proposal. He signaled to Seok Muan to gather the ropes. Repairing the floodgate wasn't a matter of showing off strength. It required reading the pressure the water exerted on the old timber and distributing that force across the whole structure. Cha Yeonho lowered his stance, bent his knees, and pulled his center of gravity back into his heels.

"Brother Nam, Cheolmungwan's records are always precise. But the rhythm of this floodgate can't be captured on a record sheet. Can you hear it? The breathing of these men, the friction of the ropes locking together."

Instead of answering, Gyuhan signaled to the torch-bearing disciples.

"Three entry points, add three more laborers as witnesses. From start to finish, record every detail, whether the rope tension shifts even a fraction of an inch."

Gyuhan looked at Yeonho and added.

"Clerk Cha, this means I intend to see with my own eyes what this 'value of labor' you speak of actually is. If the rhythm falls out of sync and the floodgate twists even slightly, I will halt the work immediately in the name of Cheolmungwan and report it to the auditor."

"Fair enough."

Yeonho gripped the rope again. The skin of his palm had torn and red seeped through, but he paid it no mind.

"Then, brother Nam, you'd better write 'joint responsible party' next to my name on that testimony sheet. As long as this floodgate holds, Hoeryu Gate and Cheolmungwan are in the same boat."

Gyuhan stared at Yeonho with a hardened expression, then let out a dry laugh and nodded.

"Madness. But, quite an interesting proposal."

The moment his hand met the timber suspended in midair, an enormous resistance from the water flowed through his fingertips and up through his joints. His toes dug into the mud, gripping the ground. He pulled his elbows in against his body to stop the force from leaking out, but his left thumb trembled numbly and the sensation lagged. He heard the sound of bone shifting out of alignment. Just before he applied the Hoeryu technique known as the shifting-timber method, Cha Yeonho felt his own breath catch.

Nam Gyuhan moved efficiently, but he hadn't calculated the floodgate's own tilt. As the pulling force concentrated in one spot, the sound of the floodgate's pillar twisting rang out. Cha Yeonho read Nam Gyuhan's miscalculation. Ignoring the pain in his own wrist, he called out a cadence to the laborers already in position.

"One, two, three, four!"

The laborers pulled the rope all at once in time with Yeonho's cadence. Yeonho applied the Hoeryu principle of using the water's own current against itself. At the peak of tension, Cha Yeonho spun his body and flicked the flow of water outward past the floodgate. The completed form of the shifting-timber method locked the floodgate in place. Nam Gyuhan realized the tilt too late, and by then his own rope had already gone taut and rigid.

"Clerk Cha, your shoulder doesn't look right. Are you planning to push yourself until you're swept away along with the floodgate?"

Nam Gyuhan approached, wiping sweat from his brow. He noticed Cha Yeonho's wrist bent at an unnatural angle and narrowed his eyes. Yeonho spat out muddy water and answered roughly.

"Even if my shoulder breaks, I have to hold this water. To prove that your thorough calculations were wrong, this much of a price is worth paying."

Nam Gyuhan wrote a short line in his record sheet. The hostility from before had faded.

"I admit your method was more efficient. But this structure is only a stopgap. The ground beneath the floodgate is already eroding."

What Nam Gyuhan handed over was a record of flood damage in the downstream area managed by Cheolmungwan, along with a list of additional bonds they had levied to fund the floodgate repairs. Nam Gyuhan drew a red line through half the bond entries and met Yeonho's eyes.

"The responsibility for the area we managed will fall on your shoulders too. This isn't my personal decision, it's Cheolmungwan's official audit report. Bring me proof of whether you can bear the debt we've been carrying."

Cha Yeonho took the document. It was both a declaration of intent to exercise external oversight in Cheolmungwan's name and a statement recognizing Hoeryu Gate as a partner. Inside the papers, a suspicious merchant house's name was stamped alongside a wave-mark seal. The truth of the double bonds was coming to light.

Just then, a law-enforcement disciple of Hoeryu Gate came running up in a hurry and dropped to his knees. Gasping for breath, the disciple produced an urgent notice of audit sent from the Oro Genealogy Institute.

"Senior brother, word has come from the central Genealogy Institute. This evening, an auditor will personally come to conduct a thorough investigation of the floodgate repair site. They say they intend to question the legality of the labor we carried out today, using the dispute over Hoeryu Gate's transmission seat as their pretext."

Nam Gyuhan showed no surprise at the news. He brushed lightly near Cha Yeonho's collar and murmured in a low voice.

"When the auditor arrives, present first the rhythm of today's work on this floodgate and the ledger of the laborers' compensation. The calluses and rope marks on these workers' palms will be far stronger evidence than any elaborate excuse you might offer. Tomorrow morning, I will submit a testimony sheet in the name of Cheolmungwan regarding what happened here today."

Nam Gyuhan turned and left the site. Seok Muan pointed at Yeonho's twisted shoulder and asked.

"Senior brother, is your hand, are you all right? Your shoulder looks like it's completely locked."

Yeonho gave a bitter smile and clapped Muan's shoulder.

"This is nothing. The sound of the floodgate collapsing would be a lot louder than the sound of my bones setting anyway. Muan, check the rope tension again. If the laborers' rhythm falls apart, this floodgate will burst before the auditor even shows his face."

Muan nodded and pulled the rope taut again. Yeonho went over to stand beside them and personally retied the knots in the rope.

"Listen, everyone! What we've tied down today isn't just the wooden planks of this floodgate. It's the name of our sect and your wages. If this rope comes loose, all of us will have nowhere left to go."

One of the laborers readjusted his calloused hands on the rope and answered.

"Senior brother, trust us with it. We'll keep the rhythm even if it kills us. Four beats, we haven't forgotten."

"Good. That rhythm is what will save us."

The rain grew heavier. Cha Yeonho looked at the bond documents in his hand and the auditor's notice from the Genealogy Institute. The ledger fragments Im Bokjin had left behind, the double bonds Nam Gyuhan had brought, and the auditor arriving this evening. Everything was tangled together like a noose tightening around Hoeryu Gate's throat. Cha Yeonho ordered Seok Muan to tighten the floodgate's ropes again. What was needed now wasn't the sect's authority, but the sheer skill to survive tonight.

Torches were lit above Gugok Floodgate as darkness settled in. The four-beat cadence called out by the laborers guarding the floodgate rang low through the sound of the rain. It felt like the new heartbeat of Hoeryu Gate. Cha Yeonho knew it. The moment this rhythm fell apart, Hoeryu Gate's rebuilding would never have happened at all. He set his feet on the wet mud once more. The pain in his shoulder shot up numbly all the way to the top of his head, but he did not look back.

The floodgate had come back to life, but the price the sect would have to pay for its future was already bearing down. Cha Yeonho looked down at the Hoeryu Gate name plate hanging at his waist. It was no longer just a relic of an old past. It was reality itself, carrying the weight of labor and survival. Without parting his tightly pressed lips, he laid his hand once more on the timber of the floodgate, now growing cold. He already felt in his bones what Hoeryu Gate would need to prove tomorrow morning before the auditor's blade. Only a few hours remained before the Settlement Hall elder's sneer and the seal on the sect leader's order would come undone. Yeonho checked the knots of the rope once more and drew a deep breath. There was no sign the rain would stop, and the water seeping through the gaps in the floodgate was shaking the sect's very foundation with growing force. The time was coming when he would have to pour out every ounce of authority and responsibility he held.

He shoved the damp bundle of ledgers deep into his robe. The auditor's visit was no simple inspection. It was an attempt to sever Hoeryu Gate's old practices from the thread of change. Yeonho covered Seok Muan's hand where it gripped the end of the rope. The pulse he felt from that palm was unsteady, but the laborers' breathing had already converged into a single rhythm.

"Muan, look over that hill. Do you see the lights?"

In the distance, a line of torches was slowly approaching through the rain. They were the auditors of the Oro Genealogy Institute. The question they would bring was clear. Whose responsibility would it be if the floodgate collapsed, and who would justify this labor. Yeonho forced his stiffening shoulder to twist and straightened his back. A pressure heavier than the pain stabbing his nerves was pressing against him from behind.