Cha Yeonho's Boots in the Mud

Cha Yeonho's boots sank deep into the muddy sill of the floodgate. The river struck the gate without pause, rattling the iron chains. On the bank, Nam Gyuhan of Cheolmun Hall stood surrounded by torch bearing disciples, sneering. His leather shoes were spotless.

"Is this the strength of Hoeryu Gate, or just a crumbling pile of tiles. You can't even hold the floodgate and the water's about to flood downstream, and the man they call senior disciple can't even fix a single chain right."

Nam Gyuhan jerked his chin at the old joint and smiled thinly.

"You'd do better handing management of this floodgate over to Cheolmun Hall. We could redirect the water in under a quarter hour. I don't understand what authority martial artists who can't even protect their sect's dignity think they have to control this district."

Cha Yeonho pressed his left thumb against the pulse at his right wrist. At that moment Seok Muan burst up out of the water, gasping for breath. He pressed a rope, tangled with mud and iron filings, into Yeonho's hand.

"Great hero, shift your feet back twelve inches."

Seok Muan laid his own rough hand over Yeonho's on the rope and murmured low. When Yeonho tried to draw on his internal energy to pull the rope, Seok Muan shook his head and tapped the rope sharply.

"Don't hold it with martial arts. The strength of murim is hard, but the current is soft. If you don't match your body to the four count our workers keep, that gate will never move. Save the arguing for later. Right now the current is eating away at the west bank."

An Sobin came forward through the mud and took the other end of the rope. She counted to four and pulled, then counted to four again and stopped. The vibration traveling through the rope was precise. Cha Yeonho bit his lip and let the hot energy in his dantian scatter. He loosened his shoulder muscles and matched his breathing to An Sobin's count.

"One, two, three, four!"

At Seok Muan's call, the workers pulled the rope together. Cha Yeonho shifted his weight back in time with the rhythm. His heels dug into the earth, building resistance. The rope drew taut with a scraping shriek of metal. The gate trembled and began to find level, but a sharp numbness shot up his spine. Backlash.

"Senior brother, ease off more! Don't press the gate down with your martial arts, you have to move with the current!"

An Sobin's shout cut through the rain. Instead of forcing his energy in, Cha Yeonho deliberately let the strength drain from his hands. He let the pressure of the incoming water flow through his whole body while keeping the tension on the rope. The creaking of the hinges stopped. The gate ground its way upward.

Nam Gyuhan's face hardened. He gestured to his disciples, but the workers' rhythm never broke. Seok Muan glanced him over once, then pulled the rope again.

"You all heard, pull harder! We redirect this water, we get paid today!"

The workers' shout filled the gate. Cha Yeonho clenched his teeth to forget the pain in his left hand. When the sill opened, the pent up river poured through and out downstream. As the water level dropped, the points needing repair came into view.

"See that. While the martial artists were running their mouths, we're the ones who caught the water."

Seok Muan spat in Nam Gyuhan's direction. Nam Gyuhan said nothing. He studied Cha Yeonho's wet hand closely. On it, rope burns stood out plainly, in place of any mark of sect authority. Cha Yeonho staggered up onto the bank. An Sobin came over and examined his hand.

"Your fingertips are pale. The backlash has gone into the bone. We need to call the healer."

"I'm fine. The gate's open. All that's left now is settling the ledgers."

Cha Yeonho pulled a soaked scrap of ledger from inside his robe. It was a document Seok Muan had fished out of the water. In the corner was stamped the seal of Cheolmun Hall. Nam Gyuhan's eyes tracked the ledger. When the evidence surfaced that his own sect had been skimming repair funds on the side, his brow drew tight.

"Where did that ledger come from. That's a lost record."

"Elder Im Bokjin had it hidden away. And this ledger also happens to record where this floodgate's toll money went."

Cha Yeonho pressed the ledger into Seok Muan's hand. In the hands of the workers' representative, that ledger became evidence stronger than any sect's military might. Nam Gyuhan signaled his Cheolmun Hall disciples to fall back. He had come here for a contest and instead had his own dirty dealings exposed.

"Senior disciple of Hoeryu Gate, let's see how long the path you've chosen can hold this sect up. Mix martial arts into labor like that and you won't live to see old age."

"That's for us to decide. Our sect code protects our disciples' bodies. It's not a seat for an outside merchant guild to interfere in."

Nam Gyuhan put out his torch and vanished. Seok Muan tucked the ledger into his robe and told the workers to settle their wages. Cha Yeonho sank down onto the muddy ground. Just then, a messenger from the Transmission Elder came running through the rain from the distance. He stopped in front of Cha Yeonho, gasping for breath.

"Senior disciple, an urgent message from the main hall. Elder Im Bokjin took his own life in his cell. His will included a document selling off the entire management rights of Hoeryu Gate's floodgates to the merchant guild. Right now the Council of Elders and the sect leader are at odds over whether that document is genuine. You need to come back immediately."

Cha Yeonho took the sealed document the messenger held out. It was Im Bokjin's handwriting. The ink had bled, and bloodstains remained around the seal.

"Is this the elder's will?"

Yeonho asked, and the messenger lowered his head. Yeonho checked the texture of the paper. The grain of the fibers matched a merchant guild receipt he had seen before.

"Same material as the guild's receipts."

Cha Yeonho tucked the wet document into his robe and turned to Seok Muan.

"Representative Seok, this document isn't just a will. It's a rope meant to strangle Hoeryu Gate. Before that rope tightens around our neck, we need to cut it first."

Cha Yeonho opened the hand that had held the rope. This time, instead of holding out against the current, he had to decide whether to tear this document up or accept it and forge a new contract. He fixed his gaze on the direction of the main hall's front gate. Management rights over the floodgate were Hoeryu Gate's last authority. Losing it would mean the sect fell to being a subcontractor of the merchant guild. He felt the pain in his left hand and remembered the count the workers had chanted while pulling the rope. Cha Yeonho gripped the messenger's shoulder and gave a short order.

"We're heading back to the main hall. Bring every ledger with you. We need to seize control of the contract before Nam Gyuhan shows his face again."

He set off down the road, dragging his mud caked boots. Seok Muan followed behind him. It wasn't only filth that the rain had washed away. Hoeryu Gate's old habits were being swept away with it. Now ahead of Cha Yeonho waited Im Bokjin's will and an unequal contract. The real fight would happen inside the main hall. Cha Yeonho pressed hard on his left thumb. The pain became a tool, straightening his resolve. At the end of the road, Baek Miryeong and Do Gyeom would be waiting. He put the messenger ahead of him and began running into the dark. Near the floodgate, the workers watched their retreating backs and silently coiled up the ropes. Tonight, Hoeryu Gate had mastered the water, but it still had to find a new way to master the sect. Cha Yeonho quickened his pace toward the lights of the main hall. The document in his hand was damp and heavy. It was a herald of the storm to come. Yeonho checked the ledger in his robe once more. Im Bokjin's stamp stood out clearly there. Now was the time to break that stamp. He felt the backlash in his wrist once more and made up his mind. The cost of martial arts had to always fall to him. Only that way could his fellow disciples rise again. Cha Yeonho faced, before the main hall's front gate, another pressure waiting for him. As he gripped the document in his hand, the sound of tearing paper rang out through the rain. The main hall's massive, tightly shut doors appeared before Cha Yeonho's eyes. An Sobin, looking uneasy, watched his back and asked.

"Senior disciple, are you really going to walk straight into the Council of Elders with that document. Their justification will outweigh ours."

"Justification is settled by the numbers in a ledger. There's plenty of time to prove that this document, stamped with Elder Im Bokjin's seal, is a fake. Miss An, Representative Seok, open the gate. It's time to settle Hoeryu Gate's debts."

At Cha Yeonho's order, Seok Muan pushed the gate open. In the main hall's courtyard, Baek Miryeong and Do Gyeom already stood with cold expressions. In their hands were settlement ledgers not yet dry. Cha Yeonho walked toward them without hesitation. The pain in his fingertips felt like it was scraping his bones, but he did not hide his left hand. The rebuilding of Hoeryu Gate had to begin not with the level of one's martial arts, but with revealing whose blood and sweat had been recorded in the ledgers. Cha Yeonho drew Im Bokjin's will from his robe and threw it at Do Gyeom's feet. The wet slap of the document hitting the ground split the silence in the courtyard. Do Gyeom crouched down and picked it up. His eyes followed the characters, growing wider as he read.

"This isn't Elder Im's handwriting." Do Gyeom muttered, his voice trembling as he held the document. "The seal is stamped, but the strokes are too neat. Right up until he died, his hands shook so badly he could barely hold a brush."

The moment she heard that, Baek Miryeong pulled a ledger from her robe and spread it roughly across the table. Her fingers ran roughly along the edge of the ledger, over the page recording the floodgate repair costs. "Brother Do is right. The texture of this document is the fine paper the merchant guild uses. There's no way Elder Im could have gotten paper like this in his cell."

Only then did Cha Yeonho feel the numbness in his left hand climbing up toward his shoulder. He forced himself to bear the pain and took a step closer to Do Gyeom. "Then there's only one conclusion. Finding out who forged this fake document to bury us, tracking down who's behind it, that's the first step in rebuilding Hoeryu Gate."

He snatched the wet document from Do Gyeom's hand and ground it underfoot. Beneath the sole of his mud caked boot, Im Bokjin's seal was crushed flat. This was now a moment of choice with no turning back. Cha Yeonho stood firm alongside the workers behind him, facing down the masters of the main hall. The victory won at the floodgate was only a stopgap. Now the time had come to rewrite Hoeryu Gate's true sect code. At the very center of the main hall, beneath Cha Yeonho's feet there was no rope anymore, but he held his center as firmly as if he were still bracing a great floodgate. Do Gyeom's fingertips, still holding the document, trembled faintly. Cha Yeonho looked straight into Do Gyeom's eyes and asked his final question in a low voice.

"Brother Do, will you hand the sect over to the merchant guild as this document says, or will we rewrite the ledgers and pay off the debt with our own strength."

Instead of answering, Do Gyeom tightened his fist around the document he held. Behind him came the cold sound of Baek Miryeong closing her ledger. That was the beginning of the war.