The Rainwater Splashing Across the Training Ground

Rainwater pooled on the training ground floor and splashed up with every step. Cha Yeonho pressed hard on the left thumb he'd strained the day before, hauling up the floodgate's sill. A throbbing pain climbed from the joint up to his wrist, but he didn't open his fist. He pushed through the training ground's main gate, and inside, a dozen or so elders sat fanned out around the head seat. In the center stood the enforcement disciples, swords drawn upright, and beyond them the empty head seat looked down, cold.

"Cha Yeonho, as senior disciple you broke the forbidden law and opened the ledger. That crime is grave."

The Settlement Hall elder slammed a scroll stamped with a red seal onto the table. Behind him, Choi Yul stood with a hardened expression. Instead of answering, Yeonho turned around. Seok Muan came into the training ground carrying a wet rope over his shoulder. Mud water and salt had soaked into the end of that rope.

"Elder, before you charge me with a crime, look at this first."

Yeonho pulled a torn ledger fragment from inside his robe and threw it at the Settlement Hall elder's feet.

"Whose treatment costs are these numbers, written in this ledger. This money, entered under the name of the senior disciple's dueling stipend, was actually the treatment costs and wages of the workers injured during the floodgate construction. Money hidden under the pretext of the sect's honor turns out to be blood money carved from these people's bones."

The Settlement Hall elder tried to snatch the scroll away, but in an instant Yeonho twisted his body and passed him by. The elder's fingertips cut through empty air. Yeonho stopped right below the head seat, in front of the spot where the sect leader should have sat. Just then, a low tremor rolled through the ground outside the gate.

"Elder, is this scrap of paper really the law of Hoeryu Gate? Do you think this document weighs more than the rope that wiped away the workers' blood?"

Yeonho pressed on, his voice rough.

"Answer me. Are the names on this list, Mr. Park who was crippled in the floodgate accident, Mr. Kim who lost his fingers, lighter than your honor?"

The elder's eyebrows twitched. He gripped his sword hilt tight and shouted.

"Insolence! How dare you compare a common worker's private injury to the sect's greater cause!"

"Greater cause? For that greater cause, you drove workers into mortal danger and skimmed their due wages. This ledger, right here, proves it."

Yeonho pointed at the ledger fragment lying at his feet and added coldly.

"The floodgate! The water's broken through!"

At the same moment as Seok Muan's shout, screams rose from outside the training ground. Yeonho glared at the training ground where the sect leader had failed to appear, then turned around. The Settlement Hall elder blocked his path and drew his sword.

"Go. If you leave this place now, I will treat it as expulsion. Walking out now isn't abandoning the senior disciple's seat. It's declaring yourself an enemy of Hoeryu Gate."

"If I feared expulsion, I wouldn't have opened the ledger in the first place. Elder, you may protect your honor in here with the stroke of a brush, but out there people are dying. If that rope snaps, Hoeryu Gate's face and your authority will both be swept away by the water."

Yeonho took the enforcement disciples' swords on his own body and burst outside. As he ran through the pouring rain toward Gugok Floodgate, the pain in his left hand climbed to its peak. His breath grew short with a pain like his bones grinding out of joint. The floodgate had already lost half its structure, and the current was eating away at the bank. Nam Gyuhan stood there holding a rope.

"I'll mobilize Iron Gate Hall's disciples. But there's a condition. Hand over oversight of Hoeryu Gate's ledgers to us. Right now, right here. We'll prove with our own hands just how rotten your sect is."

Nam Gyuhan smiled coldly and looked at Yeonho's hand. Blood welled up and stained the rope red. Without a moment's hesitation, Yeonho nodded.

"Agreed. Guarantee the workers' safety first. If Iron Gate Hall holds this floodgate in its name, that oversight is yours."

Yeonho lowered his stance. He set his weight into his heels, pressing against the ground, and matched his breathing to the rhythm of the floodgate's current. Hoeryu Gate's martial arts didn't extinguish force, they redirected it. But the weight of the current was pushing past what his body could bear. The moment Yeonho pulled the rope, the veins on the back of his hand burst.

"Nam Gyuhan! Now! Keep the rope taut and twist the angle by just 30 degrees!"

Yeonho shouted, wrapping the rope around a hand slick with blood. Nam Gyuhan stared into Yeonho's eyes for a moment, then immediately moved to the side to adjust the rope's tension.

"This is insane. You think the bank will hold?"

"We're going to make it hold. Us."

Yeonho threw his weight onto the rope once more, as if hurling his whole body. The floodgate shrieked and shuddered.

"One, two, three, pull!"

At Seok Muan's command, the workers gripped the rope. Yeonho felt the pulse of the current climb up the rope, up his arm, and press down on his heart. It felt like the joint of his left thumb was being crushed, but he gritted his teeth and threw even more weight onto the balls of his feet. The direction of the current bent slightly, following the rope's angle. The floodgate's sill slowly began to return to place.

"More! Now! Hold the sill in place!"

Yeonho bent the rope with the last of his strength. The floodgate locked shut with a dull thud. Yeonho collapsed straight into the mud mixed with rainwater. All feeling had already gone from his left hand. Nam Gyuhan came over and handed him a wet record book.

"I kept my promise. Iron Gate Hall takes the oversight. Your body's a mess. Does a man calling himself senior disciple risk his life over a single rope?"

"Not my life. I protected people. Look and see whether the numbers in this record book match the sect's ledger."

Nam Gyuhan skimmed through the ledger and gave a hollow laugh.

"This really is a mess. You need a written guarantee signed by the sect leader himself. Without it, this ledger is nothing but garbage. No matter how hard you struggle, if the sect leader doesn't acknowledge it, you're just an embezzler."

Yeonho got his trembling body up and walked back toward the training ground. This time he kicked the door open. Inside the broken door, the sect leader was still calmly drinking tea. The Settlement Hall elder and Choi Yul stood behind him.

"Cha Yeonho, you have lost a great deal today. Are you prepared to be expelled?"

"What I lost wasn't honor. It was a rotten ledger and a hollow sect code. Look closely now at whose blood boiled the tea you're drinking. This ledger records every debt you turned a blind eye to."

Without a word, the sect leader slid a scroll across the desk. It was a decree of expulsion. Beside it lay a written guarantee stamped with the sect leader's seal.

"Sign it. Then leave. This is the compensation you wanted. The moment you walk out this door, your ties to Hoeryu Gate are finished."

Yeonho snatched up the scroll. Then he gestured toward Seok Muan, standing behind him. Seok Muan checked the seal stamped on the document the sect leader had offered and nodded. Yeonho threw the decree of expulsion to the floor and stood before the sect leader and the elders.

"With this, Hoeryu Gate's debt is settled. But it doesn't wash away your crimes. The ledger will now face Iron Gate Hall's audit. Every act of embezzlement and exploitation you've hidden will come out into the world."

Yeonho walked out of the room. Outside, dawn was breaking. Seok Muan wrapped an arm around Yeonho's shoulder.

"Senior disciple, are you truly all right? We no longer have the sect's protection. Starting tomorrow, we'll have to find our own way to survive."

"It doesn't matter. Now, without being bound by their law, we can demand a fair price for the work we've done. Muan, get ready. Have you gathered everything to send to the Central Audit Bureau?"

Seok Muan pulled out a copy of the ledger he had kept tucked inside his robe. Yeonho took it and wiped away the rainwater. What they needed now wasn't honor, but concrete figures and evidence. Yeonho started walking. Far off, Nam Gyuhan of Iron Gate Hall watched them, then silently stepped aside to clear the way. The outcome had already been decided. Forgetting the pain in his left hand, Yeonho began walking toward the village. From now on, it wouldn't be the law the sect leader had set, but the time of those who had pulled the rope. Yeonho kept walking without stopping. Behind him, Hoeryu Gate's old buildings grew smaller in the distance. In the ledger he held were written, in numbers, the fair wages hundreds of workers were owed. Yeonho held it close to his chest and checked once more the sect leader's signature, the surest proof of all. Their shadows stretched long into the dawn mist. All that remained now was to knock on the Audit Bureau's door. Yeonho gripped tight the faint tremor he felt at his fingertips. This wasn't an end, but the start of a new blueprint to rebuild the collapsed floodgate. Yeonho pressed on toward the village, quiet but with clear, deliberate strides. His back, never turning to look behind, was washed in the light of dawn. Nam Gyuhan watched him go, then sheathed his sword and vanished the other way. Tonight, a change fiercer than the current at Gugok Floodgate had been set in motion. When Yeonho reached the edge of the village, he opened the ledger once more. Countless livelihoods still remained uncounted within it. He closed and opened his left hand again, thinking through the next step. Leaving the sect wasn't isolation, it was the freedom to finally begin. He was certain now that no pressure could stop them anymore. The first light of dawn poured over Yeonho's shoulders. He kept moving forward without stopping. The night when countless debts had gripped their ankles was over. Now they held the rope they had woven with their own hands, ready to move toward a wider world. Yeonho let go of the wet scrap of rope and opened a new ledger. Inside it were written, in careful detail, the workers' names, the sweat they had shed, and the fair wages the sect owed them. This was their weapon, and the beginning of a new Hoeryu Gate. He didn't look back, keeping his eyes only on the road ahead as he walked. The dawn air seeped cold into his lungs, but Yeonho's heart burned hotter than it ever had. Now, the real war was about to begin.