724.
The Talk That Slips In
The customers emptied their bowls and kept nodding.
"So refreshing."
"My stomach feels calm."
Hearing that, some of the tension slipped out of Park Seong-jin's shoulders.
He liked moments like this.
Not because it was praise,
but because he could feel people easing.
That was what made opening the noodle shop worthwhile.
Just then, the three customers lowered their voices.
They were well-dressed men from Gaegyeong.
"Have you heard what's happening up in Liaodong?" the first asked.
"Of course," the second replied, setting down his broth bowl.
"They're turning everything upside down in the name of reform."
The third clicked his tongue.
"And that Office—Jeonminbyeonjeong Dogam.
They say they're taking land back and returning it to the state, but the way they're acting is too much."
"Not just too much," the first said, shaking his head.
"They barge into households, dig through ledgers, and if you don't comply they confiscate on the spot.
It's enough to make people say the state isn't a state—it's a band of robbers.
A state of robbers."
The second gave a bitter smile.
"And the commoners cheer, so they get bolder and work even harder.
Once people become convinced they're righteous, they start delaying the moment they should hesitate."
The third added quietly,
"It began with good intentions, but once strength settles in the hand, they delay the stopping.
I've even heard it called a blind sword.
When reform becomes a sword, what gets cut is people.
And later, it becomes cutting people…"
"Delaying the stopping…"
"They all live drunk on their own sense of greatness," the first muttered.
As he listened, Park Seong-jin's brow slowly tightened.
He folded and unfolded the cloth in his hands.
Something didn't sit right.
After a brief silence, he let out a long breath.
Swinging a blade in the name of reform.
Swinging it harder amid applause.
He knew too well where that ended.
Concern and worry, unease and a bleak foreboding of the future overlapped.
His gaze narrowed on its own.
The noodle shop was still warm,
but a cold wind brushed one corner of his mind.
This place was like a window onto the world.
News flowed in at arm's length.
Once the rumor spread—cheap, yet refined—
both the ragged and the silk-robed began to stop by.
When people said, "Go at this hour, it's quieter,"
that hour became even more crowded.
The noodles came fast,
but the hungry heart was always impatient.
No one said "never enough" for nothing.
Park Seong-jin knew the currents.
He was no fortune-teller.
But he could see they were walking a lonely ridge of knife-mountain.
Touch the vested interests with even a small loss
and people reached for blades at once.
Press down with power and the pressed state could last.
Being cursed at could be endured.
But once a single weakness appeared,
they rushed in, tore, and bit.
Once the biting began, it went on.
Who lived without a flaw?
They would drag out even a spouse's distant kin
until they finally broke the person.
For a moment he felt pity
for the men tasked with the Jeonminbyeonjeong Dogam.
The king must do well.
At first he might defend them,
but once the work piled up, he might shrug it off as bothersome and wash his hands of it.
That happened—again and again.
And yet, if progress stalled again now,
Goryeo would tilt toward ruin.
The name "Goryeo" alone,
the Wang family's authority alone—
could no longer hold a place wide enough.
The suffering of the people had gone on too long.
If it hurts this way, and dies that way,
then at last people take up pikes and rise.
Perhaps once, force could press it down.
But if they keep rising, no strongman lasts.
Park Seong-jin had already seen that in Jiangnan,
and again in Liaodong.
The Training Yard Stirs
Then the Muin Corps began to stir.
They had sensed his change.
It was entirely Song I-sul's fault.
He had been told not to speak,
but apparently took it to mean,
"Don't tell outsiders."
These were not outsiders.
They were insiders.
The rumor spread quickly.
Even Hwagyeong was shocking—
Hyeongyeong?
What fell over the training yard was not noise,
but impact.
For a moment the warriors lost speech.
Hands on swords stopped.
Breaths slipped.
A warrior lives harder than most humans.
Not a day wasted.
Always trying to become even a fraction better.
A single inch of progress can feel like the whole world gained.
For a mustard-seed of internal strength, they can grind through dozens of days.
And now a realm was placed before them
that could not be explained.
Awe, disbelief,
and an unhideable reverence
mixed in their eyes.
When Park Seong-jin entered the yard,
everyone rose at once.
No one ordered it.
No rite demanded it.
Their bodies moved first.
They rose to show respect
to the strongest warrior alive.
In that instant, he knew—
Song I-sul had spoken.
He paused, then said calmly,
"Let's all work hard."
Not an order.
Not a lecture.
A quiet invitation.
The air of the training yard settled.
No one bowed their head.
Instead, they straightened their posture.
A realm unknown to this world—
unknown even if one searched decades, centuries.
And unlikely to appear again soon.
Precisely because they knew that,
they did not treat this place as a miracle.
They were simply grateful.
That they were studying here,
more than anywhere else in Goryeo.
That under the same sky,
on the same earth,
they were spending the same time.
That was enough.
And it became, in their chests, a fierce desire:
I can do it too.
Let's Practice the Sword
"Now—now. Let's do sword practice.
Today, together."
Park Seong-jin stepped to the center.
As his words ended,
people naturally gathered around him—
front, back, left, right—
a little wider than arm's length,
far enough that breaths would not clash.
No one directed them.
Yet the spacing was exact.
They began the Joseon-style sword method.
It had many circling motions—
easy alone,
easy to tangle in a group.
But that day was different.
From the first step, dozens moved
as if fitted into one mechanism.
Speed, breath, direction—
not a hair out of place.
As if a single person held the sword.
The lines of their blades overlapped.
The rhythm bound into one.
Powerful—
and strangely beautiful.
Park Seong-jin felt it.
His attainment was not pooling here.
It was spreading outward.
As though, by receiving that "virtue,"
their martial skill rose higher.
Perhaps it was illusion.
Perhaps it was real.
But at the moment they sheathed their swords—
that faint feeling of pale energy
hanging at the edge of returning—
it was not his sense alone.
Their eyes met for a brief instant.
No one spoke,
but all of them knew.
Today was different from before.
The sword practice was not faster.
Not stronger.
The same.
And that sameness
had lifted them one step higher.
More weight than interest or congratulations
was placed on doing it together.
If they kept doing that,
perhaps someday, naturally,
they might become the same.
Words Without Feet Travel a Thousand Li
It was people's mouths
that gave the rumor legs.
Hope and fear moved ahead of the wind.
What left the training yard
swelled again atop wine cups,
then crossed night roads,
shaving corners and adding flesh.
Someone spoke what they saw.
Someone added what they did not.
"They say it's Hyeongyeong."
"No—higher than that."
"He didn't even raise a sword, and his qi was flowing."
Words ran faster than facts,
and farther than facts.
Park Seong-jin did not stop them.
He couldn't.
And he had no reason to.
He already knew:
the more you block words,
the faster they run.
He only knew this as well—
wherever those words arrived,
hearts would shake.
So he returned even more quietly
to his own place.
While words traveled a thousand li without feet,
he held the rolling pin again,
did sword practice again,
and lived the day to its end—again.
Words left.
People remained.
And in the end,
what remains is not words,
but the weight of days that were truly lived.
He may have wanted
to believe that as truth.