Chapter 61

On the morning two days after he spoke with Sa-yeong, Cho Yoon sent the two kids on errands. Cheon-oh went to the pharmacy to purchase medicinal ingredients, while Sa-yeong visited a carpenter and a potter to buy containers for the gifts.

Left completely alone with his master, Sa-hyeon found himself in a private conversation—a truly unprecedented event compared to Cho Yoon’s frequent meetings with Sa-yeong or Cheon-oh.

Although the boy had recently entered adolescence, feeling frustrated with his sister’s overprotectiveness and showing slight discomfort at Cheon-oh’s significantly superior growth, his rebellion was entirely ordinary. Simply redirecting his attention would immediately bring out a bright smile, his eyes still sparkling with irrepressible childlike curiosity.

Because Sa-hyeon meticulously executed only what he was commanded to do, his record of causing trouble over the past four years paled in comparison to the other children, resulting in a distinct lack of serious counseling sessions between them.

I shouldn’t have let that happen. I should have spoken with him often, even without cause, Cho Yoon reflected, a pang of belated regret washing over him.

The fact that he possessed a naturally blunt, taciturn disposition—and that the group conversed plenty when all three disciples were present—offered no solace to the self-reproaching master.

Now, however, the inevitable separation loomed imminent; Sa-hyeon had grown noticeably silent the day after Sa-yeong’s departure with Hui became practically finalized.

Knowing it had taken two agonizing years for the boy to finally open his mouth when first brought to the mountain, urgency seized Cho Yoon. This habit of clamping his lips shut whenever stress peaked severely crippled his emotional expression—a dangerous tendency that required immediate intervention before the festering feelings could solidify.

Settling across from the gloomy boy, who sat in absolute silence with his gaze pinned to the floor, Cho Yoon gently probed, “Does the thought of remaining here without Sa-yeong trouble you?”

“…That… Yes, partly. But… no,” Sa-hyeon mumbled, his voice shrinking into a hollow whisper. “Noona… she’ll do well.”

His wretched expression violently contradicted his brave words.

Pressing a mooncake from the morning table into the boy’s trembling hands, the master softened his tone. “I am not interrogating you for failing to send your sister off with a smile. I do not expect a perfectly logical explanation, nor am I here to scold you for struggling to live apart from her.”

“…”

“I simply wish to understand the turmoil written across your face,” Cho Yoon continued. “There is no need to filter your thoughts. Speak as haphazardly as you need; if you are confused, simply voice that confusion.”

The boy’s features contorted, hovering on the precipice of tears. Scowling heavily, he subconsciously split the mooncake, placing one half onto the tea table while nervously agonizing over the other before finally stammering out a response.

“Th-that is… Noona… I mean… Noona…”

“Take your time. I am listening.”

“Since we were v-very young… Noona suffered so much because of me,” the boy confessed, his syllables fracturing under the emotional weight. “I c-couldn’t do anything, but every time… whenever she found food, she m-made me eat first. She got angry in my place, took b-beatings for me… every single time…”

Like a swollen blister pierced by a needle, the buried resentment and guilt came pouring out. Hui’s sudden proposition had evidently caused Sa-hyeon’s deeply ingrained insecurities to fester overnight.

Thank heavens I asked when I did, Cho Yoon thought, exhaling a silent sigh of relief as he nodded encouragingly.

Crushing the mooncake in his grip, Sa-hyeon violently scrubbed his forearm against his tear-filled eyes.

“So… I promised myself that when I grew up—when I got b-bigger than Noona… I would be the one protecting her.”

The master maintained a patient silence.

“But I… I’m useless,” Sa-hyeon sobbed, his voice cracking entirely. “I’m not s-stronger than Noona, or smarter. I still c-can’t speak properly, Cheon-oh is already better at m-martial arts, and I can’t even read all the characters yet. I’m nothing. I was in Guangdong with Noona too, but… but that man only wants to take her.”

“That is entirely untrue, Sa-hyeon. He never explicitly stated he only desired Sa-yeong,” Cho Yoon murmured.

Reaching across the space, he pulled the weeping boy into his arms, settling him onto his lap. The sheer shock of his stoic master’s unprecedented physical affection left Sa-hyeon paralyzed, capable of nothing but wet sniffles. Gently prying the boy’s tense, dough-caked fingers apart to discard the ruined mooncake, Cho Yoon dabbed at his swollen eyes with a silk handkerchief.

“Listen carefully to me. Hui was in no position to openly request you, even if he wanted to,” the master explained softly. “Have you forgotten Sa-yeong calling him thoughtless just days ago? Demanding a disciple by claiming one can teach them better is an exceptionally arrogant and offensive act. If the man possessed even a shred of shame, he could not possibly dare to covet both of you.”

“B-but… it doesn’t change the fact that I’m completely useless,” the boy protested weakly.

“Useless? I am the one who personally trained you. How could such a ridiculous notion be true?”

Sa-hyeon clamped his mouth shut.

A torrential flood of grievances swirled behind his eyes, but his profound respect for his master overrode his despair; voicing those complaints would effectively insult the very man who taught him.

Fully aware that maintaining decorum did not make a master omnipotent, Cho Yoon wrapped a supportive arm around the trembling boy’s back. “You are… essentially crushed between two absolute geniuses. You must expend agonizing effort to achieve what your sister and brother accomplish effortlessly, only for them to treat the matter trivially. Feeling crushed by pressure and self-doubt is only natural.”

“…Because I… I’m not a genius.”

“No, you are not. In terms of raw, innate aptitude, you hover somewhere between mediocre and exceptionally bright.”

Hearing this blunt confirmation, Sa-hyeon bowed his head in crushing depression. His master existed on a transcendent martial plane; his assessment was infallible. Even though the boy had vaguely suspected his own mediocrity, having it explicitly vocalized sent his spirit plummeting into the abyss.

Just then, Cho Yoon lightly tapped the boy’s reddened nose.

“However, you possess an entirely different, highly specialized talent. It is an incredibly rare and arduous ability to sustain. Though it demands a torturous amount of time to polish, mastering it will allow you to forge a monumental legacy that the entire world will revere.”

“M-me?” Sa-hyeon gasped, his misery momentarily forgotten. “W-what kind of… talent?”

“I must warn you, forcing this talent to bloom requires unfathomable perseverance. If you lack the willpower, I will not bother revealing it.”

Sniffling loudly, the boy tilted his chin up, plastering a look of absolute determination across his tear-stained face. In that instant, realizing he was still intimately perched upon his master’s lap, he frantically attempted to scramble down.

Cho Yoon effortlessly anchored him in place, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You possess… the innate disposition to relentlessly exert effort without ever searching for shortcuts.”

“…”

Are you seriously calling that a talent? the boy’s slightly rebellious gaze practically screamed.

Chuckling inwardly at the transparent disbelief, Cho Yoon elaborated in a gentle cadence.

“Do you think the proverb ‘a resolution lasts but three days’ exists for no reason? Unwavering dedication is frighteningly rare. Once you commit your mind to a task, you fulfill your daily quota without skipping a single session for thirty days, three months, an entire year. Even when the crushing pressure mounts and your visible progress remains agonizingly microscopic—even when you break down and weep in absolute frustration—you never actually stop trying.”

“I-is that really a talent?”

“Undoubtedly. It is the one supreme gift that those who achieve things effortlessly can never possess.”

Sa-hyeon sank into profound, deadly serious contemplation. He was visibly agonizing over whether this was genuinely a formidable asset or merely a fabricated platitude designed to soothe a crying child. Setting aside his inability to mask his facial expressions, his analytical thought process mirrored his older sister’s perfectly.

Rhythmically stroking the boy’s back, Cho Yoon waited patiently. The tears had finally ceased, replaced by the occasional, rhythmic hiccup of a subsiding breakdown.

“You are not useless, Sa-hyeon. You are simply taking a remarkably long time to compact the soil so that a colossal tree may eventually take root,” the master assured him. “And though you remain entirely oblivious to it, your cultivation has been a resounding success.”

“E-excuse me?”

“Do you have any idea how much massive energy currently lurks within you?”

Pressing his fingertips gently against the boy’s lower abdomen, Cho Yoon reached inward. The dormant qi—which had completely assimilated into Sa-hyeon’s flesh and lay quietly coiled within his danjeon—slithered awake under the master’s precise guidance, surging through his meridian pathways in a vibrant circuit.

It had taken three agonizingly slow years strictly devoted to forging a physical vessel robust enough to contain boundless internal energy, toughening the meridians to withstand violent currents, and solidly anchoring the mental cultivation method.

Following that brutal foundation, the raw power the children had relentlessly accumulated over the past year—fueled by potent elixirs—had long since eclipsed the internal strength of fully matured martial artists.

In a way, his absolute ignorance is actually a blessing. It proves the energy has melted into his very biology with perfect naturalness.

Though he often doubted his pedagogical methods, Cho Yoon could genuinely praise himself for this singular achievement: he had flawlessly cemented a foundation so absolute that the boy would easily adapt to whichever martial art he ultimately chose to pursue.