Longevity - Chapter 10

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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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Episode 10: What Manner of Monkey
Early spring had left the mountains skeletal.
Among the bare trees, only the pines and Korean pines held fast to their deep green; and within those groves, Jangsen spotted a dark shadow moving.
Distance and tangled branches obscured the details, but its size was no larger than a dog’s, and its fur held the grey-black cast of ash.
Yet it was no dog.
The shadow crouched not on the ground but in the boughs above. Of all the creatures Jangsen knew that might climb trees in this region with a frame of such size, there were only two: a wildcat or a palm civet.
He tied his fishing line to a stone and rose, retrieving a thick branch from the water’s edge and gripping it in his right hand.
Whether the beast posed danger to men remained uncertain; still, he could not bear to leave without knowing what it was.
Jangsen picked his way forward, careful not to tread on the dry leaves. As he drew closer to the grove, the creature’s back grew steadily sharper in his vision.
It lay coiled upon a thick branch, asleep. Its face and tail were hidden beneath its curled form.
Not a wildcat. Far too large for a house cat.
When some thirteen paces remained, Jangsen’s left foot nudged a stone.
It rolled down the slope, striking others as it fell.
Tap. Tap-tap.
The creature upon the branch rose.
A sharply protruding snout, hollow eye sockets, and long, spindly limbs all appeared in a flash. The moment it saw Jangsen, it leaped from its perch and bolted deeper into the pine forest.
In one bound it crossed to the next tree, then hurled itself higher, grasping a more distant branch. Between the rustling of leaves and wood, a black tail flickered twice before vanishing entirely.
Jangsen stood motionless, branch still in hand.

“A monkey?”

No monkeys lived in Deungju. Jangsen knew them at all only because, as a child in Hyeonseong, he had once seen a performing monkey.
Just before it fled, he had glimpsed something like a ring fastened about the creature’s neck.
It was either an owned beast or one that had escaped from a performer.
Jangsen did not give chase. The collar alone could not settle which was which, and the depths of the pine forest were no path for a man with a lame leg.
He discarded the branch and returned to the water’s edge.
The passive trap required no watching, but the whole of Nayangja’s company sat in lotus position, lost in meditation. Rather than disturb their practice with talk of the monkey, Jangsen settled quietly beside the line.
By the time the afternoon waned and the party prepared to depart, Jangsen carried several fish strung together with water grass through their gills.
They were creatures with no scales and as flat-bodied as catfish; when he held one, it croaked like a frog.

“Huang Gazi,”

then,” Jin Ip-chu said, peering at the catch.

Jin Ip-chu laughed at the sight.

“The youngest scholar joins us, and what we eat on the road changes for the better.”

Nayangja was spare with words. I Jung-yong, too, was not one to speak first, and Jeon Jin-gung offered almost nothing unless asked. It was Jin Ip-chu, for the most part, who kept the conversation flowing along the way.
Since Jangsen had taken up cooking duties, Jin Ip-chu’s words had only multiplied.

“Youngest scholar, there is one skill you must master before you learn martial arts.”
“What is that, sir?”
“Nine in ten men favor their right hand. In a fight, they trust in it alone and throw themselves at their opponent. Should your left hand become as free as your right, you will find nine common men out of ten easy prey.”

Jangsen nodded, though doubt lingered in his heart.
Observing his expression, Jin Ip-chu plucked a stone from the roadside. With a light flick of his left hand, it shot across and struck the base of a tree across the path with perfect accuracy.
He handed another stone to Jangsen.

“You try it. Left hand.”

Jangsen took the stone and assumed his stance. He swung his arm, but the stone tumbled into a nearby patch of grass, its trajectory veering far from the target tree Jin Ip-chu had indicated.

“That throw looked like a woman drained of all her strength.”

Jin Ip-chu laughed.
Jangsen had no retort and could only offer an embarrassed half-smile.
I Jung-yong spoke from beside him.

“The third speaker’s counsel is sound. You must master your left hand. When both are free to move, you strike from where your opponent does not expect, and strike first.”

Jangsen picked up another stone.
This time he twisted at the waist before releasing it, and the stone flew a bit farther, bouncing twice in the middle of the road before stopping. Jin Ip-chu didn’t laugh—instead, he took hold of Jangsen’s wrist and adjusted the angle for him.

“Don’t put force into it first. Send it where your fingertips point.”

Jangsen threw the third stone. It still didn’t reach the tree, but the direction was closer than the previous two attempts.
Only then did he feel the difference between his right hand and his left. His left arm carried less strength, and his fingers wouldn’t obey him. As he walked, he repeatedly clenched and unclenched a small pebble in his left hand. He wouldn’t be able to use it like his right hand within days, but if he didn’t practice now, it would stay this way forever.
The conversation Nayangja had with Jangsen the day before—both I Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu had overheard it. Knowing that Jangsen wanted to learn the Hunyuan Divine Art, the two of them didn’t immediately force him to memorize the secret formulas.
The Hunyuan Divine Art was a profound meditation method of the Taoist Sect. Without understanding the principles of Yin-Yang Five Elements,

one could memorize the characters but never grasp their meaning.

“Metal generates water, and water generates wood.”

I Jung-yong recited one line at the front, and Jin Ip-chu continued from there.

“Wood generates fire, fire generates earth, and earth generates metal again. This is Mutual Generation.”

Jangsen repeated after the two of them.
The lesson continued through Mutual Restraint and the lodging of Yin-Yang, then into the positioning of directions and numbers. Though much of it was new to him, once he grasped a meaning, it didn’t easily fade from his mind.
Jin Ip-chu suddenly asked a question.

“What does wood suppress?”
“Earth, sir.”
“And fire?”
“Metal, sir.”
“Which direction is Heaven?”

Jangsen thought for a moment, then pointed northwest with his finger.

“Northwest, sir.”

By evening, he could recite the Mutual Generation and Mutual Restraint of the Five Elements in order, and he’d identified each position of the Eight Trigrams Nine Palaces

one by one. I Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu exchanged glances. Jin Ip-chu clicked his tongue.

“I thought he’d only memorize after hearing a song once, but he never forgets things like this either.”

That evening, the party lodged at the abandoned Yeondae,

a beacon tower that had once sent messages through fire and smoke in wartime. Built as a temporary structure, the garrison soldiers had long since departed after the war ended.
The stone walls were half-collapsed and there was no roof. Still, it was better shelter from the wind than an open field.
During slack season, even common folk ate only two meals a day. The party did the same, taking no extra evening meal. Instead, they warmed the rice left over from midday and boiled a broth with the Huang Gazi that Jangsen had caught.
They softened dried wood ear fungus collected along the road and added it to the pickled vegetables. It wasn’t the season for mushrooms to sprout, but dried ones clinging to rotting wood could often be found.

“Thanks to our youngest brother, we have more side dishes again.”

Jin Ip-chu emptied his soup bowl.
Baturoo ate two more bowls without a word.
After the meal, everyone settled down and sat in lotus position. Jangsen still didn’t know how to circulate his Qi, so he lay with his back against the collapsed stone wall.
The party had slowed their pace to match his walking speed, but tramping mountain paths all day was still exhausting. The moment he closed his eyes, his body felt as if it were sinking through the stone floor below.
Since Jangsen couldn’t see in the dark, the party didn’t push forward at night. For the next several days, they set out at dawn and stopped before sunset, covering sixty or seventy li a day.
Jangsen never once complained of fatigue.
Even when his legs ached and his shoulders grew stiff, no one looked at him strangely. There was no one to mock his uneven gait or hurl insults.
When No Hwang crossed his mind, a corner of his chest would darken, but for the rest of the time, his heart was more at peace than ever before.
Nayangja rarely interfered with his disciples’ training.
From the start, the martial arts they were learning were neither created by Nayangja nor found by him. The secret manuals obtained from the tomb had been chosen and studied by the disciples themselves. Nayangja had scarcely ever looked into their contents.
The bamboo slips inscribed with the Hunyuan Divine Art had long since vanished. Not destroyed by human hands, but rather, the slips that had been trapped in the tomb for ages, once exposed to open air and wind, had decayed rapidly.

Fortunately, I Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu had both memorized the entire content.
The two men seated Jangsen beneath the stone wall of Yeondae and recited the secret formula
of the Hunyuan Divine Art
line by line. They weren’t trying to unlock its meaning for him to practice right away—first, they wanted him to commit every word to memory without gaps.
When the recitation ended, Jin Ip-chu spoke.

“To travel the martial world, one cannot overlook the Lightness Skill

either.”

The Lightness Skill that Baturoo had mastered was the Eight Steps Chasing Cicada

—not the highest divine movement technique, but serviceable enough for running swiftly by channeling Spirit Energy through the legs.
What I Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu had learned was the Pursuing Wind Ghost Step

—an ancient divine technique recovered from a tomb dating to the Jin dynasty, whose defining trait was that it didn’t rely on straight-line movement.

“Master it completely, and you can run like the wind itself, even create afterimages.”

Jin Ip-chu swung his hands left and right.

“Some say your shadow splits into many, trailing behind you.”

The Five Elements Concealment Art that Jeon Jin-gung was learning also contained Lightness Skill techniques within it.
As Jangsen listened to the explanation, he gazed down at his own left foot. Even when he tried to walk straight, his body swayed from side to side.
I Jung-yong followed his gaze downward.

“Actually, the Pursuing Wind Ghost Step might suit you better. In this technique, changing direction matters more than moving in a straight line. Your disability with your legs won’t necessarily remain only a weakness.”

Jangsen slowly raised his head.
The desolate stone floor of Yeondae appeared to him for the first time as a place fit for training.
With I Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu taking over instruction, Nayangja found himself with much more leisure. Yet Jangsen did not sense that he seemed at ease.
Nayangja rarely let worry show on his face, but when no one was watching, he would often gaze toward distant mountains. His eyes held the look of someone who had walked a long way yet come no closer to his destination.
Jangsen didn’t know what he was searching for.
He could only tell that after years of pursuing tombs and ancient records, Nayangja had still not obtained what he desired.
Over several days on the road, they had encountered bandits many times.
Those hiding among the ridges and forest edges spotted the party but didn’t approach—the group all carried weapons and arms, and there was Baturoo himself, looming as tall as a black tower.
The bandits counted their numbers from afar, then quietly disappeared.
Walking only remote paths didn’t mean encountering no other travelers. One day, they came face to face on a narrow trail with several monks collecting alms.
When Nayangja saw them, he offered no greeting. The monks in turn simply stepped aside without speaking.
Jangsen had once witnessed monks and Daoists fighting. Since then he’d believed the two groups didn’t get along well, but watching Nayangja’s demeanor, that assumption didn’t seem wrong.
After the monks had passed out of sight, Jangsen asked Jin Ip-chu.

“Do Daoists and monks naturally dislike each other?”
“That history runs deep. There are more reasons than I can count, and it would be hard to explain them all now.”

Jin Ip-chu turned to confirm the path where the monks had vanished.

“A major conflict broke out forty years ago. The emperor at that time, Wuzong,

favored the Taoist Sect and believed that Buddhist monks weren’t working and contributed nothing to the nation.”

As a result, an imperial edict went out across the entire realm to eliminate the Buddhist Sect. Temples were destroyed, and monks were forced back into the secular world.

“The monks’ situation then was truly tragic.”

Jangsen turned to look at the gray robes receding into the distance.

“Then the Taoist Sect must have grown greatly.”
“It should have, by all reason. But even the Taoist Sect had its share of worthless men.”

The smile faded from Jin Ip-chu’s lips.

A Taoist named Zhao Guizhen, without proper training, concocted elixirs and presented them to Wuzong. Wuzong consumed those poisoned pills and died.”

When Wuzong died and Xuanzong ascended to the throne, Zhao Guizhen faced severe punishment. The calamity did not end with that one man alone—it spread to other Taoists as well.

Jin Ip-chu exhaled softly.

“And so now our Taoist community finds itself in difficult straits.”

Jangsen watched the back of Nayangja walking ahead of him.
The monks had stepped aside yet exchanged no salutation—because the old grudges that lingered even after their departure had never truly ended.

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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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