Defying the Heavens Scholar - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Against Heaven’s Will — Episode 1

Episode 1: Clawing for Survival

They say that if you have a sharp mind, your body will find ease, and even if your mind is dull, if your strength is formidable, you’ll never starve.
But I had only the mind. My body was fragile, my vitality meager—so much so that earning enough to eat each day felt impossible.

A life such as this left me with nothing but sighs, nothing but resentment reflected in every glance.
That I, once called a prodigy in childhood, had become so impoverished—it was laughable even to myself.

By my mother’s account, I read at two years old and had memorized the Four Books and Three Classics by three.
Schoolmasters from the Academy lined up, each eager to take me as a student.
But talent did not translate into rice.

We were always poor.
What little my mother earned, selling her labor, barely covered medicine and rent.

“Forgive me, Myo Jin. If only you’d been born to a better mother, you could have studied to your heart’s content…”

This was what my mother said constantly.
Each time, I would answer that it was fine, and embrace her.
Even though I knew it wasn’t.

One day, the Academy master spoke to her carefully.

“It’s true the boy has wasted talent, madam, but if you wish him to study further, you’ll need to prepare funds for books and materials. Wouldn’t it be wiser to have him teach the laborers to read and earn money that way?”

On the walk home.
My mother’s shoulders had noticeably shrunk.
That night, my mother sat before me, hesitating at length before she finally spoke.

“Myo Jin, let’s set your studies aside for now. Your body is weak, and clinging only to books won’t change anything…”

I smiled and said.

“It’s all right, Mother. Books won’t run away. I can return to them later.”

Yet that night, beneath the lamplight, I caressed the single book we owned for hours, unable to sleep.
A few days later, an unexpected visitor arrived.

“Is this the child’s home?”

A deep voice from a stranger.
A middle-aged couple clad in fine silk robes stood before our shabby thatched cottage.
Behind them were two servants carrying luggage and another holding the reins of a horse.

My mother hurried out to the threshold.

“May I…may I ask who you are?”
“I’m called Hwang, a merchant from the neighboring district.”

The middle-aged man smiled broadly and cast a glance over me.

“I heard from the Academy: there’s a boy who gave up his studies because of poverty, yet when he reads a book once, he commits it entirely to memory, and when he solves a problem, he perceives what others cannot.”

My mother’s face flushed crimson in an instant.

“Please, don’t mention it. The boy simply has a good memory.”
“If memory alone were his gift, I wouldn’t have come all this way.”

The old master approached me and asked,

“What is your name?”
“Myo Jin Hwang.”

At the mention of Hwang, his expression softened considerably.

“Recite a passage from the Four Books and Three Classics. Whichever comes to mind first.”

I recited a verse I had always favored.

“When Heaven is about to bestow a great responsibility upon a person, it first frustrates his spirit, exhausts his muscles and bones, starves his body, and confuses his undertakings. In this way, his mind is stimulated, his nature is strengthened, and his capabilities are increased.”

The old master closed his eyes to listen, then asked again,

“A passage from Mencius, I see. How do you understand its meaning?”

How did I understand it?
Not even my tutor had posed such a question.
I gave my answer as it came to me, in my own way.

“Though one’s heart and body may break and suffer, if there is something worth doing, how could one not endure? Even the humblest person has a purpose yet to be fulfilled, so one must never abandon diligence.”
His silence hung in the air.

A moment of stillness passed between us.
A curious light flickered across the old master’s face.

“Not a boy who memorizes words, but one who sees beyond them.”

My mother watched carefully, her lips pressed tight with worry.
The old master considered for a moment, then spoke gently.

“I have no children of my own. I have some wealth, but no one to share a meal with.”

He turned toward my mother with a smile.

“If it is possible, I should like to take responsibility for this boy’s education.”
“I… I beg your pardon?”

My mother’s eyes glistened with tears.
And so that day, Master Hwang and his wife became our patrons.
They covered the costs of my education at the Academy, and occasionally sent rice, firewood, and medicinal herbs to our house.

“Do not think of it as a debt. I simply wish to see a well-nurtured tree grow.”

These were the words Master Hwang left behind as he departed.
But his patronage did not end there.
One day, he arrived unexpectedly in our courtyard with a proposal.

“Myo Jin, studying books alone will harden your mind. Let’s try something different.”

With that, he began arranging pebbles in a line across the bare earth.

“Imagine one hundred people standing here.”

Each pebble represented a single person.
A triangle meant a mounted soldier.
A square meant a supply wagon.
A flag shape meant the commander.

After marking them out this way, he watched my reaction.

“The wind blows from this direction. Say this field is a battlefield as it stands now. Which line would crumble first?”

I swept my eyes across the diagram and answered.

“The flag is positioned too far forward. Since it catches the eye first, that line will shake first. Once the flag breaks, the men behind it will collapse.”

Hwang’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Then how should we rearrange it to hold?”

I removed several pebbles from the front row and shifted them back, then took one stone from the side and positioned it next to the flag.

“Pull the flag back one step and place your strongest men here. That will break the momentum of whoever charges first.”

Hwang, who had been silent for some time, let out a low laugh.

“I served in the Military Office when I was young. There were plenty of men who saw such diagrams with their own eyes yet couldn’t read them.”

He gave my shoulder a light pat.

“Your eyes—they see the field from above, don’t they?”

From that day on, Hwang would sometimes draw lines in the dirt and call me over.

“Where should we strike to break the line?”
“If we’re blocked here, where will the men flee?”

Each time, I answered without much deliberation.
I thought it was merely a game.
My mother watched from the edge of the porch, smiling quietly.

‘If only this moment could last forever.’

I wanted to believe it would, and I worked without rest to make it so.
I also thought that one day I would repay the kindness of Hwang and his wife, and of my mother.
Before the plague came to the village.

* * *

The plague spread in an instant.
First the sound of coughing increased, then mourning clothes began appearing in household after household.
Families without medicine saw their people die one by one, and even those with medicine could not always prevail.
It was in the midst of this that my mother collapsed.

“She’ll be back on her feet soon.”
“She just needs to rest a little.”

So I said with my lips, but I felt her skin growing cold.
As I held my mother’s hand and endured, the air in the house slowly drained away.
And not long after, mourning clothes appeared at the home of Hwang and his wife as well.

The day I emerged having swallowed my tears before my mother’s death.
I walked as far as the gate of Hwang’s house, but when I saw the funeral bier standing in the middle of the courtyard, I could not take another step.
In a single night, the two pillars I had leaned upon had collapsed at once.
In my mother’s room, only a worn quilt remained, a few sets of clothes, and books stained with the marks of my hands.
The rice jar that Hwang had sent was already empty, and there was nowhere left to look for money to attend the Academy.

After the funeral, the room was filled not with people, but with silence.
From that day forward, I gathered what little I had—a few books and some clothes—wrapped them in cloth, and left the village.
Thus I became a person with nowhere to return, no one to hold me back.

Walking aimlessly along the roads, I found myself crossing into different provinces, hearing different dialects.
In the marketplaces I helped carry goods; at night I would curl up in the corner of an inn’s courtyard and recite passages of text in my mind.

‘Books don’t run away,’ they say—yet now it seemed the words had changed to ‘all I have left are books.’

As time passed, nothing changed.
By day I took whatever work I could find; at night I sat beneath the eaves of some shabby shrine and recited passages by starlight.
Using the stars as my lamp instead of a candle, I would recall the pages and dream vaguely of the day when I too might pass the State Examination and leave my name upon paper.

Years went by, and at last I came of age to take the Civil Service Examination.
My reasons were not grand.
Life was a bitter struggle, and a passage from Mencius that I had once quoted to Hwang suddenly came back to me.

‘If even a common man can find his use… then surely I must seek out where I might be useful.’

Without hesitation, I set my face toward Jang An City.
But fortune was not with me—bandits fell upon me on the road and stripped away everything I owned.
All that remained on my pitiful frame was tattered clothing and a single brush that the thieves had left behind with a laugh, along with the words stored in my mind.

Still, I did not turn back.
I endured for several days beneath the eaves of a wayside shrine, waiting for the day of the examination.

* * *

On the morning of the State Examination, a thin mist settled over Jang An City.
The great road before the city gate was already crowded with people.
Scholars from every province had gathered, adjusting their caps and clutching brush holders to their chests, murmuring and memorizing texts aloud.
By headcount alone, they could have fielded a small army with ease.
Only this army carried brushes instead of spears, and wore robes instead of armor.

A bronze bell rang out from atop the city wall.
The heavy gate slowly swung open, and the scholars lined up in order filed through one by one.
My eyes sharp with tension, I looked around at my surroundings and slowly squeezed through the crowd, carefully stepping over the threshold.

My nerves were wound so tight that the sound of my footsteps on the stone path seemed to echo a hundredfold.
My heart thundered in my chest, but I drew deep breaths and tried again and again to steady myself.

Then I arrived at the vast examination ground.
It was immense.
Across the wide plaza, narrow wooden booths were packed close together, each containing nothing but a single desk, a single chair, and a single ink stone and brush rest.
As the gathered scholars entered their respective booths, I heard the sound of doors being locked one by one from the outside.

Click.
Click.
Click.

It sounded as though we were all being pinned into place, one by one, on some vast board.

‘In here, there is only me and what lies in this mind.’

First Question – On Governance

It is said that law is the net by which the people are governed. How must the mesh of this net be woven in order for it to become true law?

At a glance, I could already imagine how many would use it.

‘Laws must be stern.’
‘Crime and punishment must be clear.’
‘In service of the Crown’s will, enforce with impartiality.’

Twist the sentences I’d read in books a little, and plausible writing flows effortlessly.
I’d memorized enough of such passages.
But the moment I lifted my brush, my hand would not move.
I closed my eyes and recalled what Hwang had said.

The story of three deserters caught at the Military Office.
All three shared the same charge: dereliction of duty.
Then came their reasons.
One had fled in terror, one had nearly collapsed from hunger and slipped away, and
one had witnessed superiors torment a subordinate, and fury had driven him to bolt.

“By law, all three are equally guilty. But if we execute all three the same way, which of the remaining soldiers will come to hate more?”

I had no answer.
That was when Hwang pressed further.

“Write law by the letters alone, and only the most defenseless ever die. The ones whose necks truly deserve the blade always hide in the back.”

The words returned to me, crystalline and sharp.
I wrote a single line at the top of my answer.

— Law does not merely correct crime; the hand wielding law must first hold true purpose.

Lengthening charges and sharpening sentences—
that is only making the net’s mesh finer. I wrote that no amount of tightening a net catches anything but the powerless.
What truly matters is who holds the net.
Which official, seated at which post, chooses to accuse first.
Whether law is wielded equally against the strong and the weak alike, or merely brandished against those beneath.
Unless the direction of that measure shifts, rewriting the characters changes nothing—it is not law, but a tyrant’s blade.

how to relieve famine, how to fortify the realm’s defenses, and more besides.
Most probed the foundations of statecraft itself.
And I answered always by examining those depths first.

when the final question lay before me.

Hands flipping papers back over, doubting what they read. Brushes wavering in the air, breath held.

The scholars who had done nothing but memorize texts all lost their way at once, facing this single question.
And with reason.
The final problem was about martial arts.
The proctor quietly suppressed the commotion.

“There is no single answer. How you read this martial art, how you unpack it, how you apply it—write down your thoughts freely.”

‘This is… a State Examination question?’

I stared down at the paper before me.
Several passages. Breath-energy, Heart, Blood, Respiration.
Unfamiliar words lined up—questions about circulating through the meridians, about what collapses when they’re blocked.
In that moment, the examination hall grew louder still.

“Interpret martial arts…?”
“Are they asking us to fire off palm strikes?”
“Is this the Civil Service Examination or a martial world tournament?”

Someone burst out in protest, then caught themselves and clamped their mouth shut.
The proctor’s gaze fell on them like a blade.
He simply set down the question sheet and spoke.

“Silence. Pick up your brushes.”

My hand hesitated for a moment.
Shame notwithstanding, fear rose in me first.
But then came the memory: Mother’s empty room, the bare rice jar, rags, and a single brush—and beyond it all, endless poverty.
All of it whispered that if I faltered here, everything would slip away forever.
So I could not hesitate any longer.

I drew a long, steady breath.

‘Martial arts are also writing.’

Those who wield the sword read with their body; I read with characters.
But in the end it was the same. Fail to read the meaning, and both power and path become empty motion.
I began by grasping the core in a single line.

‘Cause and effect, prohibition and symptom.’

When the heart wavers, breath-energy grows turbid.
When breath-energy grows turbid, stagnation rises and counterattacks.
When stagnation builds, the eyes grow dizzy.
When breathing turns ragged, blood flees first.
I seized that current and began to move my brush slowly across the page.

I do not know how to execute martial arts.
But I know how to read the board.
The questions Master Hwang once posed—arranging a hundred pebbles and asking which would fall first—were reborn here now, in different form.

Which would crumble first.
How to shift it to hold fast.
I only converted those answers into written words.

The examination hall remained turbulent around me.
Some crumpled their papers as if surrendering; others stared into empty space, chewing their lips.
I kept my head bowed.
If I stopped here, it would be back to the streets.
I am a body with no home to return to, no one to hold me up.
I paused for just a moment, then added one more line.

‘I have never turned my Internal Energy Circulation inward to examine it.’

That fact struck the back of my neck.
But what I needed now was not execution—it was interpretation.
Reading and solving, establishing it all through words.
That was what the Master had always taught me.

—Read the situation under any circumstances. That is your gift.

The image of him smiling gently seemed to surface in my mind.

I moved the brush tip again.
I would not hide what I did not know, but would prove to the end what I had discerned.
I swept my eyes across the paper once more, and did not set down the brush.
With the remaining time, I resolved to unfold it all more deeply.

Whether the examiners would judge what I had written favorably, I could not know.
But today, at least, I had to prove myself through my own words.

Against Heaven, A Scholar

Author │
Jo Sung-wan
Publisher │
Choi Won-young
Editorial Director │
Lee Ho-jun
Editor │
An Sung-woo
E-book │
Park Han-sol

Published by │
D&C Media Co., Ltd.
Registered │
April 25, 2012, Registration No. 20-260
Address │
1301-8, Corong Digital Tower Villant 1st, 30 Digital-ro 32-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
Main Phone │
(02)333-2513 Fax (02)333-2514
Email │
[email protected]
Website │
blog.naver.com/gnpdl7

UCI G720:N+A092-20260812093

*This book is published by D&C Media Co., Ltd. (Papyrus) under contract with the copyright holder, and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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