The Mending Studio - Chapter 2

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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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Chapter 2
The disciple seated at the table lifted his brush, and the child sniffled once.

“Gu Ying.”

The disciple’s brush tip paused.

“You have no other name?”
“I do.”

The child glanced quickly over his shoulder.
Madam Jang, some distance away, had begun to mouth something to him, but the moment she felt the eyes of those around her, she hastily shut her lips.
Gu Ying looked forward again.

“Yi Shunfeng.”
“Hmm?”

The disciple raised his head, and Gu Ying’s face went rigid with tension in an instant.

“Pardon me, Immortal. Is my name… strange?”
“Not at all.”

The disciple examined the child again.
Tangled hair.
Traces of dried mucus still clinging to his nose.
In every way, he looked like an ordinary child from some rural village.
Yet his name alone carried a curious, almost Daoist elegance.

“A fine name indeed. Go over there and have your spiritual root examined.”
“Yes!”

Yi Shunfeng trotted quickly toward the disciple holding the crystal sphere. A younger sister-disciple standing beside Yuk Musang watched him go, then parted her lips softly.

“Sister, isn’t it true that Sozijin hasn’t produced even a middle-grade spiritual root in centuries?”

Her voice was already brimming with curiosity.

“Couldn’t we just look around nearby while the examination is happening?”

Yuk Musang gazed across the plaza for a moment.
There was no real need for all six of them to remain in place.

“Very well.”
“Brother Wang!”

The young sister-disciple brightened at once and waved her hand toward Wang Zhenhua, who held the crystal sphere.

“We’ll leave this to you and Brother Song. Sister Yuk and I will take a quick look around the area.”

Wang Zhenhua nodded.
When Yuk Musang and the sister-disciple had taken a few steps, it happened.
Whoosh!
A brilliant golden light erupted behind them, and a golden glow surged up above the plaza.
The two stopped in their tracks at the same moment. The section inside the crystal sphere was pouring forth resplendent golden radiance. The gentle shimmer of light rippled outward in layers, like waves on water.
Wang Zhenhua’s face emptied of all composure.

“Superior-grade…”

His words caught short.

“A superior-grade metal-attribute spiritual root.”

The plaza fell silent enough that you could hear someone swallowing, and every eye turned at once toward Yi Shunfeng standing before the crystal sphere.
Just moments ago he’d been a sniffling child. He stared up at Wang Zhenhua with a bewildered expression, oblivious to what was happening—but metal-attribute spiritual roots were exceedingly rare.
Even a middle-grade would earn the title of small prodigy, and a superior-grade was the kind of cultivator’s timber any sect would welcome into their lineage.
Light kindled in Yuk Musang’s usually composed eyes.
It was an ideal spiritual root for learning the sword at Yeonggeom Peak.

“My Gu Ying…….”

While Madam Jang pressed both hands to her mouth, the person beside her grabbed her arm and shook it.

“Madam Jang! Did you hear? Superior-grade! Superior-grade!”
“I heard. I heard it…….”

Even as she answered, Madam Jang’s gaze never left her son. It had been nearly three hundred years since talent of this caliber emerged from Sozijin.
Just as the murmur threatened to explode into chaos, Wang Zhenhua raised his hand.

“Next.”

This time a different couple brought forward a child.

“Name?”
“Zhao Guangyi, sir.”

The disciple at the table this time asked directly.

“You have a proper name as well, I assume?”

The boy’s father nodded quickly.

“Yes, sir. His birth name is Zhao Guangyi.”

The brush stopped again.

“……Did you choose this name yourselves?”

Even Madam Jang laughed this time.

“No, sir. Ye Xiansheng gave both names to us.”
“Ye Xiansheng?”

The disciples of Taehyeon Seongjji exchanged glances with one another.
That someone so learned existed in such a remote village as to bestow names of this quality was unexpected; Yuk Musang turned the name “Ye Xiansheng” over in her mind.
The unfamiliar name lingered briefly, but she soon let her gaze slip away.

“Continue the examination.”

Wang Zhenhua placed Zhao Guangyi before the crystal sphere.
As his dharma power seeped in, a clear radiance wreathed the boy’s body.
And then.
Crack!
This time a beam far thicker and more vivid than the golden light before burst skyward—a brilliant yellow column that made the crystal sphere itself tremble violently, ripples of light radiating outward.
Wang Zhenhua’s mouth fell open. The disciple beside him stepped forward unconsciously.
Yuk Musang’s eyes narrowed.

“Supreme-grade…… earth-attribute spiritual root.”

Someone drew a sharp breath.

“How remarkable!”

That exclamation set off a ripple of held breath throughout the plaza.
A single superior-grade metal-attribute spiritual root would have been a windfall.
But the very next child possessed a supreme-grade root.
A faint smile crossed Yuk Musang’s lips for the first time.
Every five years, Taehyeon Seongjji sent disciples into the secular world to scout for talented children. Sozijin was one such outpost.
Five years prior, Zhang Qingfeng, who had overseen Sozijin, had returned empty-handed without selecting a single disciple. This time it was Yeonggeom Peak’s turn, and Yuk Musang’s group harbored no great expectations from the start.
Yet after examining only two children, one possessed a superior-grade metal-attribute spiritual root.
The other held a supreme-grade earth-attribute spiritual root.
At this rate, they would depart not empty-handed, but carrying away two specimens that Yeonggeom Peak had awaited for decades.
Even Yuk Musang found it difficult to maintain her composure any longer.

“Continue.”

The examination proceeded. As time wore on, the expressions of Taehyeon Seongjji’s disciples grew increasingly peculiar.
Fan Zhongyan possessed a supreme-grade water-attribute root, Wei Zhongxian a supreme-grade wood-attribute root, and Wu Sangui a supreme-grade fire-attribute root.
With each flash of light, the stirring in the plaza intensified.
Some people laughed until their lips trembled; others stood transfixed, staring at the crystal sphere. A few whose eyes had opened too wide in shock found their eyelids twitching uncontrollably.
And so the examination of the final child concluded.
Wang Zhenhua remained speechless for a long moment.
Of the eight children, only Yi Shunfeng possessed a superior-grade root. The remaining seven all bore supreme-grade attainments.
Two or three might be called fortune; even four would have been cause for celebration throughout the land. But if all eight children possessed such caliber, the matter transcended mere fortune.
Across all of Taehyeon Seongjji, a single recruitment had rarely yielded so many talents. Yet every last one of them came from the same small village.
Wang Zhenhua peered at the crystal sphere, suspecting some fault in the dharma formation, but the luminescence within remained perfectly steady. The examination results were unambiguous.

“…Is such a thing even possible?”

Song Seonghyung murmured the words almost unconsciously.

“Is Sozijin not a village, but some blessed land?”

Yuk Musang offered no ready answer.
It was too much to dismiss as mere chance.
Eight prodigy cultivators had emerged from a single village all at once.
Yuk Musang studied the children’s faces one by one.
Even their names struck her as strange.
So Ye Xiansheng had chosen them, she recalled.

“Return to your homes and prepare.”

Yuk Musang addressed the children.

“We depart for the Mountain Gate together in two hours.”
“Yes!”

The children scattered to their parents’ sides.
The plaza erupted into a chaos of tears and laughter.
After entrusting the remaining arrangements to Wang Zhenhua, Yuk Musang and her young companion slipped away from the plaza.
Before long, the junior disciple held a sweet rice cake in each hand.

“Master, after spending all that time in the mountains, being down here is rather pleasant.”

The junior disciple took a bite and her eyes crinkled with delight.

“And Sozijin—we mustn’t underestimate it. If Master’s words ring true, isn’t this place truly a blessed land?”

Yuk Musang surveyed her surroundings instead of answering.
Until moments ago, she had dismissed it as an ordinary rural village.
But now that she was conscious of it, something felt strange.
The heaven and earth spiritual qi was far denser than she’d expected.
It wasn’t the kind that surged brazenly like the spiritual veins within the Mountain Gate. Rather, it permeated the entire village so faintly that one could pass right through it without noticing.
But once she became aware of it, similar sensations emerged everywhere—in the wind brushing the alleys, in the trees beyond the low walls, in the eaves of ordinary houses. A subtly crystalline essence seemed woven into each place.
The air itself seemed to hold traces of dao principles—faint, but impossible to ignore once perceived.

“Perhaps it really is like that.”
“Hey! Look at this.”

The disciple walking ahead crouched down in front of a small shop.

“It’s a wooden hairpin—absolutely beautiful.”

Yuk Musang glanced over without particular interest.
Then she stopped walking.
A modest curio shop, neither worn nor ornate.
Above it hung a single wooden plaque.
Jangcheong Curio Shop.
The plaque bore only five characters.
Yet Yuk Musang found her gaze unable to leave the powerful strokes that composed them.
Where they curved, they seemed like dragons writhing in agony; where they fell straight, they resembled sword blades splitting the void. The five characters flowed without interruption from beginning to end as though exhaled in a single breath.
At first, she thought the calligraphy was simply beautiful.
Then, in the next moment.
All ease vanished from Yuk Musang’s face.

‘Sword Intent?’

What emanated from the plaque was no mere stroke-work.
Yuk Musang drew a step closer without thinking.
In that instant, the qi flowing from within the shop became sharper, entirely unlike the ordinary spiritual essence. But it wasn’t spiritual qi alone.
There was more than that.
As formless qi poured forth from the shop like a spring and split into several currents that mingled with the heaven and earth spiritual qi along the street, Yuk Musang drew in a quiet breath.
Her body reacted before her mind could follow.
Hundreds of spiritual apertures that had been sealed began to loosen one by one, and the spiritual power in her dantian began to circulate of its own accord without any conscious command.
Her entire body grew warm and at ease, as though submerged in a hot spring.

‘What is this…?’

She looked up at the plaque again.
This time, she steadied her mind and read the first character properly.
Zhang.
Qing.
Curio.
Shop.
Point.
As she read the final character, her vision wavered, and the strokes extending from the characters became no longer ink-lines but swords—countless swords hovering in the void.
Another sword.
Uncountable blades.
The momentum of swords layered like mountains, and a crushing pressure—as though ten-thousand-zhang cliffs would collapse if she took but one step forward—pressed down upon Yuk Musang’s sword heart.

“—!”

Yuk Musang snapped her eyes shut and steadied herself, severing her resonance with the plaque. Only after evening her breath several times did color return to her face, though cold sweat had already soaked through her back.

‘That was dangerous.’

She had read merely five characters.
Even one at the Gold Elixir Stage had nearly succumbed to the True Sword Way Intent contained within them.
Yuk Musang slowly clenched and unclenched her fist, as though verifying something.
During those brief moments while she withstood the Sword Intent, she had glimpsed—if only fleetingly—a breakthrough: the next realm of the Geumwon Sword Scripture, long sealed within her, now glimmered faintly in view.

“Yuk Musang?”

The young apprentice, who had been crouching in front of the shop examining the hairpin, looked up belatedly at Yuk Musang.

“What’s wrong? Your face has gone pale.”

Yuk Musang drew a deep breath instead of answering.
As she retraced the sensation from moments before, her doubt dissolved.

“Apprentice.”
“Yes?”
“When I return this time… I think it won’t be long before I reach the sixth level of the Geumwon Sword Scripture.”

The apprentice’s eyes widened.

“The sixth level?”
“That’s right.”
“But our master said that if you reached the sixth level within five years, you’d break Yeonggeom Peak’s record. And it’s been less than six months since you entered the fifth level, hasn’t it?”

At those words, something flickered in Yuk Musang’s eyes. A possibility suddenly occurred to her.
The moment she turned her gaze toward the back of the shop, a man walked out from inside.
He wore a simple blue robe, and his handsome face—appearing to be in his early twenties—bore no trace of arrogance; his gait and breathing were serene.
Yet strangely, despite his lack of ornate dress or overwhelming spiritual pressure, Yuk Musang found her eyes drawn repeatedly to how naturally he blended with his surroundings.
Yuk Musang’s gaze caught on him instinctively.

‘…He’s handsome.’

She was slightly displeased that this thought came first, but it was true.
She immediately unfurled her Divine Sense, yet detected no aura, no spiritual power of a cultivator, no trace of dharma force.
He appeared merely an ordinary person, and disappointment flickered across Yuk Musang’s eyes.

‘So someone else wrote the plaque.’

Around that time, Ye Zhangqing observed the two women and noted that the one with a long sword at her waist possessed an uncommon bearing.
The other, though young, was neatly dressed, and more tellingly, her attire resembled that of the Taehyeon Seongjji disciples who had flown in from the plaza direction.

‘They must be from Taehyeon Seongjji.’

Ye Zhangqing’s mood brightened somewhat.
His heart had ached all morning as students vanished one by one, but now the customers he’d been awaiting had truly arrived.
Cultivators wouldn’t fuss over mere silver coins of the mundane world. Moreover, since both were women, if something caught their fancy—whether painting or hairpin—they might pay generously.
With luck, they might even produce spirit stones.
Though Ye Zhangqing had never used a spirit stone himself, he knew their value was extraordinary.
A single fragment could be exchanged for no small sum in mundane gold and silver.

‘Will I finally make a proper sale today?’

Subtle anticipation rose in Ye Zhangqing’s face.
Of course, he harbored no other thoughts.
No matter how beautiful the woman before him was, or how confident he felt in his own appearance, their stations differed. One was a cultivator; the other, an ordinary person without even a spiritual root.
Ye Zhangqing concealed his true feelings and smiled gently.

“Please, feel free to look around. Small as this shop is, we have some worthy items. And the prices are honest.”

Yuk Musang nodded lightly, yet still regarded Ye Zhangqing merely as a shopkeeper. Still, the curio shop itself seemed too strange; her curiosity could not be suppressed.
The moment the two stepped inside, Yuk Musang’s long hair swirled without any wind to stir it.
An invisible force rushed toward her from ahead, far denser than what she’d felt before the plaque, and her spiritual power began circulating of its own accord once more.
After her spiritual apertures opened, with each inhalation a clear qi seeped into her body, and Yuk Musang slowed her pace.
The curio shop was not large, and the seemingly ordinary goods on the shelves were arranged so neatly that nothing was out of place.
Yuk Musang examined the shop more carefully.
The longer he looked, the stranger it all seemed. The wooden hairpin, the brush standing upright in the corner, the painting hanging on the wall—each of them bore the same faint aura, as though touched by some invisible presence.

‘All of them?’

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