The Muddy River Against the Iron Floodgate

Mud thick river water pounded against the iron door of the Gugok Floodgate. The chains pulled taut and rang out with a metallic shriek. The wound he'd taken yesterday while adjusting the sill throbbed, but Cha Yeonho did not look away. He stood beside Do Gyeom, watching the breathing of the twelve laborers.

"One. Press the breath down below the dantian and load it into the heels."

At Cha Yeonho's command, twelve pairs of shoulders sank.

"Two. Create friction against the palms and shift the center of weight back."

The laborers' feet dug deep into the mud.

"Three. Take the floodgate's recoil through the hips and let it drain into the ground."

Their legs stretched taut, bearing the floodgate's full weight.

"Four. Hold."

The instant the rhythm stopped, the massive iron door groaned and lifted. An Sobin staggered, and Cha Yeonho stepped in behind her. He braced her hips and murmured low.

"Lower your waist. Take the recoil through your hips, not your spine. If you don't, next time you grip the rope your wrist joints will buckle. Again."

An Sobin bit her lip and set her stance. The four count cadence began again. This time the floodgate's tremor passed through her body and sank into the ground. The iron door rose another ten inches, smoothly. With the recoil that had once concentrated on one person now spread across twelve sets of muscle, no one's joints slipped from their sockets. The sill broke the surface of the water.

"Good work. Today's wages go out directly, without the Settlement Hall elder's seal."

Cha Yeonho checked the ledger and pressed his seal to it. Seok Muan clicked his tongue as he examined the wear on the rope.

"Senior disciple, if we keep doing this the sect's emergency funds won't last a week. Once the elders hear about this decision, they'll move to strip the Transmission Seat's dueling rights immediately."

"Let them. Losing dueling rights is nothing compared to the dam bursting and the whole sect washing away."

Just then, Ma Sayeon came down the embankment beside the floodgate. He clicked an abacus bead, then stood before Cha Yeonho holding a bundle of worn receipts.

"Master Cha, saving the floodgate was quite a feat. But can this sect's finances really bear such an effort? As it stands, Hoeryu Gate's toll bond has already passed into Iron Gate Hall's hands."

Ma Sayeon held up a receipt written on special paper in front of Cha Yeonho's eyes.

"I'll transfer the bond cheap. I'll even defer the interest Hoeryu Gate owes right now. But there's a condition."

"Name it."

"Assign all toll revenue from every vehicle passing through the Gugok Floodgate to my trading house for ten years. And hand over a copy of the sect's official seal. Without the seal, the authorities won't recognize your right to manage the floodgate."

Do Gyeom gripped his sword hilt and stepped forward.

"Handing over a copy of the seal means putting our sect's administrative authority under your trading house. That's not a deal, that's surrender."

Cha Yeonho stepped in front of Do Gyeom and fixed his eyes on Ma Sayeon.

"Surrender? Hardly. It's simply a way to pay off debt. Once you hand over the seal, my trading house will be registered as the sect's party of responsibility and will cover the floodgate repair costs in your stead. It's a chance to free yourself from that tiresome burden you carry, Senior disciple. Refuse, and the creditors will be at your door tomorrow morning."

Cha Yeonho noticed a faint nick on the corner of the receipt. It was a deal both of them knew was a trap.

"Even if I accept this deal, the seal's authority is bound up with the sect's internal labor contracts. Take the seal, and you still won't be able to shut the floodgate at will or drive out the laborers."

"That's a separate matter. Once the deal is struck, the seal and the contracts become mine. Though of course, Master Cha will have to keep proving the legal basis for maintaining those contracts."

Cha Yeonho cut him off with a short answer.

"Fine. Hand over the bond. I'll give you the copy of the seal tomorrow, along with the settlement ceremony records. But we keep exercising the sect's right to procure food."

The corner of Ma Sayeon's mouth lifted faintly.

"That's just like you, Master Cha. Still the habit of taking a loss and holding onto your justification anyway. I'll notify Branch Director Seo Eunseol of this."

Once Ma Sayeon was gone, Seok Muan asked urgently.

"Are you really going to hand the seal over to that swindler? It's the only legal defense we have."

"It doesn't matter if it stays a subordinate body within a scope we control. Seok Muan, what matters right now is proving we fixed that floodgate ourselves. A seal means nothing if we have no ability behind it. The sect falls either way."

Baek Miryeong came over with the treatment ledger and took hold of Cha Yeonho's wrist.

"Senior disciple, there are more recoil injuries that never made it into the ledger. The recoil they took on to hold up the floodgate is settling into their nerves. Even once Ma Sayeon's deal goes through, treating them is still on us."

"I know."

Cha Yeonho sat beside An Sobin and laid his left hand over hers.

"I'll speak to Master Mugyeol myself. The Transmission Seat's ledger of responsibility needs to be linked to the laborers' treatment records. If we don't change the sect code, we'll spend our whole lives paying off someone else's debts until there's nothing left of us."

Just then, an enforcement disciple from Iron Gate Hall came down the embankment and unrolled a scroll.

"To Cha Yeonho, senior disciple of Hoeryu Gate. This is a message from Nam Gyuhan, head of Iron Gate Hall. To settle the matter of floodgate repair technique and the responsibility for years of negligent management, an open bidding contest will be held here at the Gugok Floodgate tomorrow at noon. Hoeryu Gate is to give up its prior claim and submit to a duel and a contest of skill. Should you lose, all management rights transfer to Iron Gate Hall at once."

Do Gyeom lunged forward, but Cha Yeonho raised a hand and stopped him.

"Tell him this. Hoeryu Gate accepts the duel. But we set the terms of the skill contest. The floodgate will be repaired not by Iron Gate Hall's methods, but by the four count rhythm these laborers use to pull the ropes. Will he accept that?"

The disciple answered with a sneer.

"The head already expected as much. We'll be waiting in front of the floodgate tomorrow at noon."

Once the disciple was gone, Do Gyeom glared.

"Senior disciple, what is this? Iron Gate Hall are masters at handling equipment. Our odds of beating them in a contest of skill are low."

"It isn't a contest of skill. It's a fight over who can hold the rhythm of labor better."

Cha Yeonho recalled the memory, from before his return, of the floodgate's collapse and the sect's annihilation.

"Seok Muan, drill this four count cadence into the laborers before noon tomorrow. It's not the strength that pulls the rope, it's the breathing rhythm that never lets go. Miryeong, pick out the disciples with the lowest recoil levels and station them by the floodgate."

He looked at the seal box. It held the original of the copy he'd hand over to Ma Sayeon tomorrow. He clenched his left hand tight. The numbness at his fingertips was no longer fear now, it was debt.

"Tomorrow at noon, the moment Iron Gate Hall arrives, we'll already have opened the floodgate. Before Nam Gyuhan even gets here, we'll have this floodgate fixed and put the receipt in his hand."

Do Gyeom nodded. An Sobin clenched and unclenched her trembling hand as she straightened her stance. Cha Yeonho sat on the wet ground and began braiding the rope again.

"Tomorrow, the moment the sun rises, we check the ropes at the floodgate entrance. I won't allow a single margin of error."

Cha Yeonho followed the grain of the rope with his eyes. The fibers twisted in the wrong direction. The same grain as Ma Sayeon's receipt. Cha Yeonho pressed the corner of the receipt with his left thumb. He used the pain as a marker and mapped out tomorrow's duel.

Do Gyeom ran his cracked palm along the strands of the rope and asked.

"Senior disciple, will this rope really hold the load until noon tomorrow? It's already soaked through and hanging heavy."

Yeonho pulled the end of the rope taut and fixed it in place like driving in a wedge. When he pressed his thumb firmly into the grain of the knot to check it, the tight tension came through to his fingertips.

"It's not that it holds, it's that we make it hold. This knot is more precise than Iron Gate Hall's chains. It doesn't lock down by force, it spreads the floodgate's weight across the twelve of us, muscle by muscle, on its own."

An Sobin wiped mud off the rope and added.

"Senior disciple, my wrist trembles far less than before. Following the four count cadence, the rope doesn't feel like it's dragging me, it moves like it's part of my body."

"Don't forget that feeling."

Yeonho pointed a finger at the fresh callus that had formed on An Sobin's palm.

"That right there is the receipt we hand Iron Gate Hall tomorrow. While they crush the floodgate down with their massive steel equipment, we're going to throw its gap wide open with nothing but this breath."

Seok Muan clicked an abacus bead loudly and added.

"So when Iron Gate Hall comes tomorrow at noon, smug and holding their bidding papers, all we have to do is set a piece of this rope down on top of them."

Yeonho let out a short laugh and pulled the knot tight once more.

"No, it won't be rope we set on that paper. We'll hand them an itemized statement of the weight of the floodgate they couldn't handle, and the value of every hour these laborers poured into it. Tomorrow isn't just the day we fix the floodgate. It's the day we become the masters of this sect."

He pulled the rope hard. The taut line resisted, humming under the strain. A fierce current poured through the gap in the floodgate. Amid that roar, Cha Yeonho steadied his breathing. One, two, three, four. The fixed rhythm. Cha Yeonho stood up in his wet boots.

"Tomorrow morning, we release the floodgate's lock. Everyone to your positions."

The command was short and heavy. The laborers took hold of the ropes again without complaint. Darkness settled over the Gugok Floodgate. Cha Yeonho stood firm before the floodgate, waiting for the storm to come. A single receipt bearing Ma Sayeon's deal, and the pain of his injured disciples, were his only capital. Cha Yeonho picked up the worn iron seal resting on the table beside the floodgate. Ink meant for making the copy had smeared across it. He checked the floodgate's hinges one last time. He looked toward the path Nam Gyuhan would take to arrive. Below the floodgate, a wedge fitted into a crack in the rock was slowly swelling as it soaked up the rain. Cha Yeonho planted his short sword beside the wedge. It was a witness waiting for tomorrow's verdict. He brushed off the wet dirt and stood up. Cha Yeonho closed the sect ledger and set the seal on top of it. It was the weight of tomorrow. The first record filled entirely with the fruit of labor, bearing no seal from the Settlement Hall elder. He left the floodgate entrance in the rain and headed for the senior disciple's quarters. Muddy water splashed with every step, but he did not look back. He opened the door, went in, and spread the map out on the desk. He traced, one by one, the path Nam Gyuhan would take and the positions where Iron Gate Hall's people would be stationed. At the tip of every finger he pressed down, concrete figures for tomorrow's duel took shape. This was his final design.