The Mending Studio - Chapter 3

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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 3
Yuk Mu-ssang’s heart gave a sharp, sudden leap.
At that moment, Yeop Jang-cheong glanced back over his shoulder.

“Ah, that’s right. I didn’t close the back door.”

He murmured the words to himself and disappeared into the Back Room as though it were nothing, and Yuk Mu-ssang watched his retreating figure for a moment before her gaze swept across the shop once more.
It was then that she caught sight of a single Calligraphy Painting hung with care on one wall, and her eyes stopped cold.
Evening Rain Parts the Blind’s Roll—a cooling breeze cuts sharp as autumn.
Late rain parts the sparse screens, and the crisp breath stirs like autumn’s touch.
Yuk Mu-ssang’s pupils trembled ever so slightly.
The next instant.
The shop vanished, and the world before her divided into black and white. Evening rain fell, and as the eaves brushed the wind aside, cool air grazed her face—at first there was only silence.
Then one thread of rain transformed into Sword Qi, and immediately split in two.
Ten.
In an instant, countless streams of rain transformed into thousands upon thousands of strands of Sword Qi, cascading down.
Black lines pierced heaven and earth as they descended, and even the wind changed. The gentle breeze that had stirred became an endless Sword Force, rippling through the air.
When still, it resembled a tranquil lake; but the moment it moved, it carried the momentum of a vast wave swallowing all in its path. Yuk Mu-ssang’s breathing grew ragged, and the blade at her hip trembled of its own accord.
A low resonance.
A faint cry emanated from the Sword Sheath.

‘This is…….’

Sweat trickled down her brow.
But this time, unlike before the Plaque, she did not forcibly tear her gaze away.
Deep within that Sword Force, something remained—something unfinished.
Just a little more.
One step further.
The moment Yuk Mu-ssang grasped that sensation.
Crack.
A barrier that had been sealed in her mind for so long shattered.
Golden Yuan Sword Realm Level 6.
The Realm that had seemed merely within reach an instant before now opened in a flash.
It was some time before Yuk Mu-ssang’s eyes snapped open.
As reality returned to the shop, her fingertips trembled. The emotion that overwhelmed her before joy itself was awe.
Five characters on the Plaque alone had stirred her Sword Heart; but this single Calligraphy Painting had lifted her Realm itself.
Then.
Who in the world could have written this?
At that moment, footsteps echoed from the Back Room, and Yeop Jang-cheong returned.
As he stepped into the shop, he stopped short upon catching sight of Yuk Mu-ssang’s face. Her eyes, fixed intently on the Calligraphy Painting on the wall, shone with a mixture of astonishment and delight.
A smile bloomed at the corners of Yeop Jang-cheong’s mouth.

‘As I thought.’

She was someone with a discerning eye.
She was no mere disciple of Tae Hyeon Sung Ji for nothing.

“Do you perhaps have a fondness for calligraphy and painting?”

Yuk Mu-ssang startled slightly.
Lost as she had been in the world of Sword Force mere moments before, a response did not come immediately, and her gaze turned instead to the lower edge of the Calligraphy Painting.
The Artist’s Seal.
The name Yeop Jang-cheong was unmistakably clear.

“If I may ask… whose seal marks this work?”

Yeop Jang-cheong’s eyes blinked once.

‘She even noticed the seal.’

There was no reason to ask if someone merely glanced at the painting in passing.
Anticipation began to stir within her.
Yeop Jang-cheong cleared his throat once.

“It is, indeed. Yeop Jang-cheong.”

This time, it was Yuk Mu-ssang who went rigid.

“Did you… write it yourself?”
“Yes.”

Yeop Jang-cheong nodded easily, as though it were nothing.

“I wrote it about a year ago. It was one of those evenings when rain fell and the wind lifted the leaves, and watching them, the impulse simply came to me.”

His tone was unremarkable.
As casual as if he’d merely taken a walk because the weather was pleasant.
To hear Yeop Jang-cheong speak so offhandedly about capturing such a vast Sword Path Truth in his brushwork—that it came to him on a whim—sent a chill racing down Yuk Mu-ssang’s spine.
Only then did her first judgment of Yeop Jang-cheong overturn completely.
The reason her Divine Sense had perceived nothing was not that he was an ordinary person.
He was a being whose depths lay beyond what her current realm could even glimpse. At that realization, Yuk Mu-ssang’s posture began to bow slowly.

“Senior.”
“Senior?”

Yeop Jang-cheong laughed as though bemused.

“You seem to have misunderstood. I am merely an ordinary person who cannot even cultivate. I am not fit to be called senior.”

Yuk Mu-ssang had no answer, and until moments ago, she too had believed precisely that. Her Divine Sense had detected nothing, so she had taken the young man before her to be ordinary.
But now that judgment appeared inverted entirely.
The Sword Path Truth contained in the plaque alone had shaken her Sword Heart, and she’d reached the Golden Elixir Realm. The moment she stepped into the shop, her Spiritual Eye opened of its own accord, and merely beholding the calligraphy painting on the wall had carried her beyond the wall of the Golden Yuan Sword Realm Level 6.
Yet all of it was a trace left directly by the person before her, and she sensed no cultivation whatsoever.
It was far more natural to conclude that he was not ordinary, but rather a being whose true depths her Divine Sense could not fathom from the start.
Yuk Mu-ssang’s fingertips tightened.

‘Is he concealing his identity while living in this place?’

She could not know why such an exalted cultivator had chosen to open a small curio shop in So-ji Jin. But if someone of such lofty realm had deliberately suppressed their aura and lived as an ordinary person, there must surely be a reason she could not presume to question.

“Senior, just now—”

The words reached the tip of her lips before she stopped, and Yuk Mu-ssang’s spine chilled again.
What if revealing that she had seen through him was itself an offense?
The man before her was smiling peacefully. At the sight of that serene expression, she found no courage to add another word carelessly, and Yuk Mu-ssang swallowed what she had meant to say.
Yet strangely, it was not fear alone that filled her.
Since ascending to the Golden Elixir Realm, had her heart ever raced like this? To face before her an incomprehensible being—the terror and the strange, exhilarating thrill mingled together—she bowed once more, with care.
Yeop Jang-cheong alone blinked, bewildered.
Yuk Mu-ssang hesitated briefly before speaking with caution.

“I have loved calligraphy painting since childhood. Having learned much from the characters you just wrote, at least in that regard, it is fitting to call you senior.”

In cultivation practice, she could not compare, but in calligraphy painting, the matter stood differently. Yeop Jang-cheong narrowed his eyes, deciding that what she said was not entirely wrong.
At that moment, young Sa-mae, who had been selecting wooden hairpins beside them, looked up.

“You liked calligraphy painting? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

Yuk Mu-ssang’s eyes twitched slightly.

“Before I entered Tae Hyeon Sung Ji, I did.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”

Sa-mae tilted her head curiously but didn’t press further.
Yuk Mu-ssang let out a quiet breath of relief, then turned her attention back to the Calligraphy Painting on the wall.
A single glance had cracked open a sealed Cultivation Method within her. If she could keep this beside her and contemplate it slowly, there was no way to guess how far she might advance.
Desire stirred in her chest.
But she couldn’t simply ask for it outright.

“Proprietor, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would you be willing to sell me that Calligraphy Painting?”

At the words he’d been waiting to hear, Yeop Jang-cheong’s eyes brightened just a fraction. Still, not wanting to seem too eager like a common merchant, he deliberately glanced at the Calligraphy Painting once more before nodding.

“It’s an item I’ve hung in the shop, so naturally I can sell it if you find it agreeable.”
“And what would be the price?”

Yeop Jang-cheong hesitated for a moment.
He had no way of knowing what price would be fair to charge a Cultivator for a Calligraphy Painting. He didn’t want to name an outrageous sum and lose a customer, yet he was loath to part with it for a pittance.
He chose words that sounded plausible.

“Since Fate has brought you to this place, pay whatever your heart deems right.”

Yuk Mu-ssang’s expression shifted again.
It was not something an ordinary merchant would say.
Considering everything she’d seen in this shop, it didn’t sound like mere indecision about pricing.

“Shop owner.”

Sa-mae raised her hand high, a Wooden Hairpin in each palm—the ones she’d been eyeing since earlier.

“How much for these two?”

Yeop Jang-cheong laughed.

“Those too—pay what feels right.”
“Really?”

Sa-mae pondered for a moment, then rummaged in her robes. Coins clinked softly against one another.
Three Coins emerged onto her palm.

“I saw hairpins like these once, at the Foot of the Mountain. Those were a Coin each. Yours are so much prettier, so I’ll give you three Coins for both.”

Yeop Jang-cheong’s smile froze, just for an instant.

‘Three Coins?’

For two?
Even if they were only Wooden Hairpins, he’d polished them himself, and they should certainly fetch more than what he got at the So-ji Jin market.
But his assumption—that Cultivators wouldn’t care about mundane currency—had just been proven wrong.

‘Tighter than I expected.’

His heart sank, but he couldn’t show it in front of a customer.
Yeop Jang-cheong accepted the three Coins with an unbothered expression.

“Very well.”

Yuk Mu-ssang, watching the exchange, froze as if struck by lightning. A faint but unmistakable Dao Rhyme shimmered around those hairpins.
She was letting two such objects go for three Coins.
Without a trace of reluctance.
Her mind suddenly cleared.

‘Ah.’

Now she understood. The person before her had chosen to live an ordinary person’s life—concealing their true identity, running a small shop, spending coins just like everyone else, buying and selling with mortals. It was a deliberate choice.
Surely to refine their Heart-Mind Cultivation. But what would happen the moment she produced a Spirit Stone or Dharma Treasure?
It wouldn’t be a transaction at all. It would be disrupting their practice directly. Or worse—

‘It would be an insult.’

Cold sweat broke across Yuk Mu-ssang’s back.
She felt dizzy thinking of how close she’d come to pulling out a Spirit Stone just moments ago.
She turned her head.

“Sa-mae.”
“Yes?”
“How many coins do we have left?”

The young girl held up three fingers.

“Three coins, miss.”
“Lend them to me.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”

Sa-mae, bewildered, extended the three coins again.
Yuk Mu-ssang accepted them with both hands and placed them before Yeop Jang-cheong.

“Master. In that case, I will purchase this Calligraphy Painting for three coins.”

This time it was Yeop Jang-cheong who froze.

‘What?’

She’d just paid three coins for two wooden hairpins.
And now three coins for the Calligraphy Painting?
Yeop Jang-cheong glanced at the writing hanging on the wall.
Even by his own judgment, it was a fine piece.
If he could take it to a market in his previous life, he’d expect at least hundreds of thousands, perhaps even a million in value.
Yet three coins.

‘She said she liked Calligraphy Paintings?’

What was that moved expression from a moment ago, then?
Suddenly he didn’t want to sell it.
He’d rather hang it in a privy than let it go for this.
But he was the one who’d said to do as her heart wished.
Besides, the buyer was a Cultivator of Tae Hyeon Sung Ji. It wasn’t proper to change his word now.
Yeop Jang-cheong forced himself to maintain his smile.

“As I said, please do as you wish.”

Yuk Mu-ssang felt even deeper admiration.
Truly, he held no attachment to wealth.
She offered merely three coins, yet he accepted without a trace of displeasure.
That moment when Yeop Jang-cheong’s gaze had briefly turned toward the Calligraphy Painting now seemed entirely different to her—not the hesitation of someone parting with something precious, but rather his final assessment of whether she was worthy of this connection.
Yuk Mu-ssang straightened her posture without meaning to.

‘Is this what a true Master’s Heart-Mind Cultivation really looks like?’

Two hairpins cost three coins, and as Yeop Jang-cheong accepted the payment without hesitation, Yuk Mu-ssang began to understand the rules of this shop. At least for now, what mattered wasn’t acquiring some precious treasure from the Cultivation World, but adapting to the way he had chosen—the way of the mundane world.
Yet the man before her was in the process of handing over a Calligraphy Painting imbued with the Sword Path Truth, something she could spend a lifetime studying without fully grasping, for merely three coins. The disparity was so vast that she found herself unable even to make the comparison.
Yeop Jang-cheong took the Calligraphy Painting down from the wall.
He placed it carefully into a Wooden Box he had prepared in advance and handed it to Yuk Mu-ssang.
Yuk Mu-ssang accepted it with both hands.
The single box felt heavier than a mountain.

“Thank you so much.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“We should be going now.”
“Safe travels.”

Yuk Mu-ssang and Sa-mae turned to leave.
As Yeop Jang-cheong watched the two women exit through the door, he exhaled deeply to himself.

‘Today’s business was a disaster.’

Far from the Spirit Stones he’d been hoping for, all he’d gained was six coins.
Three coins for two hairpins.
Three coins for one Calligraphy Painting.
He’d been foolish to assume a disciple of Tae Hyeon Sung Ji would spend generously.
Still, it wasn’t a total loss. Since he’d begun selling Calligraphy Paintings at So-ji Jin, he’d rarely encountered anyone who would stand before one of his works for so long, someone who genuinely loved his brushwork.
The payment was disappointing, but the customer’s reaction itself wasn’t unwelcome.
Even as Yeop Jang-cheong acknowledged this, he found himself looking down at the six coins once more.

“Still, six coins is rather….”

The words spilled out unbidden.
He turned toward the Back Room, thinking he might brew a pot of tea to console himself.
It was at that moment.
Yuk Mu-ssang, who had been about to cross the threshold, stopped in her tracks.
After hesitating several times, she turned back around.

“Excuse me.”
“Yes?”
“Would it be all right if I came by again occasionally?”

Yeop Jang-cheong’s eyes widened slightly.

“Come by again?”
“If questions arise about the Calligraphy Paintings, I mean.”

Her tone was cautious.
Yeop Jang-cheong regarded her with evident surprise.
She’d just paid a mere three coins, yet here she was, saying she’d return to learn more.
It seemed she truly did love Calligraphy Paintings.

‘Perhaps she does have some discernment after all.’

His spirits lifted somewhat.
There was no reason to refuse when a customer wanted to return.

“Come whenever you wish.”

Yuk Mu-ssang’s face brightened.

“Truly?”
“Yes. There’s no need for permission when discussing Calligraphy Paintings.”
“Then I’ll be grateful for your guidance in the future.”

This time, she truly turned to leave.
Even after stepping outside the shop, her pace remained light for a long while.
Yeop Jang-cheong watched her go, murmuring to himself.

“She really does love it, doesn’t she.”

Then he glanced down at the six coins in his palm.

“Though I do think I sold it far too cheaply.”

Outside the shop, Yuk Mu-ssang didn’t hear his final mutter. She was aware of nothing but the Wooden Box cradled against her chest.
What had seemed like a trifling object mere moments ago now felt more precious than any treasure in Tae Hyeon Sung Ji.
Beside her, Sa-mae kept stealing glances.

“Yuk Mu-ssang.”
“What is it?”
“You’ve been so strange ever since we left.”
“Strange how.”
“Calling that shopkeeper ‘senior’ over and over. Buying a single Calligraphy Painting for three coins and acting as though you’ve found treasure.”

Yuk Mu-ssang stopped walking.
Sa-mae swung the Wooden Hairpins she held in both hands.

“And why do you keep staring at it like that?”

—————
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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