Chapter 372. With No One Around, He Missed People
His mouth had gone dry.
No matter what Youngwoo said, Go Youngchang failed to understand.
Even when he explained in detail, the man would not accept it.
He was not examining the discussion in search of common ground. He was only looking for an opening through which he could get what he wanted.
He was the sort who exhausted people by probing endlessly.
With no one around, Youngwoo found himself missing people.
Only now did he admit how often someone like Kim Yungyeong had handled such matters for him.
At last, he understood why he had been able to focus on military affairs.
Opening a road with a sword at the front was far less exhausting than standing behind and filling every gap between one man's words and another's.
Youngwoo wet his dry lips and said,
"Instead of trying this with me, find someone skilled in diplomacy and discuss the matter seriously with them. Diplomatic isolation ends in disaster. I am tired even of saying this much."
There was an unmistakable dismissal in his words.
Go Youngchang either failed to notice it or pretended not to, because he added several more remarks.
Youngwoo stopped listening and rose from his seat.
"This is a place where people come to cultivate. The daily routine here runs on a very strict schedule. Let us end this."
Go Youngchang gave an embarrassed smile.
"My apologies. I failed to consider that."
Youngwoo opened his palm and gestured toward the exit.
He had no intention of saying anything more.
Go Youngchang started to rise, then asked again.
"May I come back tomorrow?"
Youngwoo shook his head.
Courtesy might have demanded a yes.
But political men like this were difficult.
He would keep talking until he obtained what he wanted.
He called it persuasion, but in truth, he wore people down with words until they gave in.
"Do not try to persuade me. This is the time for you to focus on changing yourself. Do not come tomorrow."
Go Youngchang's face stiffened.
Youngwoo added,
"If there is something we need to discuss, send it in writing. Provisions, troop strength, repairs to the gates, treatment of prisoners, relations with Jin—surely you have more than enough to deal with. Stop talking to me about the throne and the state name. Repeating the same argument is unlikely to change my mind."
Go Youngchang opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Only then did he seem to realize that saying more would have the opposite effect.
He lowered his head.
"Understood."
"I will not see you out."
Even after Go Youngchang left, his words seemed to remain in the reception hall like dust.
Only when Youngwoo heard the door close did he let out a long breath.
Talking was more exhausting than swinging a sword.
The guest-receiving monk had been waiting not far away. He came over with a broad smile.
"Did everything end well?"
Youngwoo shook his head wearily.
"I answered him again and again, and he just kept asking the same things. Truly tiresome."
The monk smiled.
"It seems he wants a great deal from you, benefactor."
Youngwoo began grumbling.
"He wants to be king. King of Liaoyang, no less. Every fool in the world wants a crown these days. Good heavens."
The monk asked,
"Is that something that happens if you give your permission?"
Youngwoo burst out laughing.
"Puhaha! Of course not. Ahaha. Did it really sound that way?"
The monk brought his hands together.
"I was not trying to eavesdrop. Your voices simply carried."
"The evening service is over, yes?"
"Yes. It is time to close the doors. Are you only beginning now?"
It had only been a few days, yet the people here had already learned Youngwoo's routine.
Youngwoo answered with a laugh.
"Ahaha."
He entered the darkened hall.
The Mahavira Hall was cold and dim.
A faint trace of incense remained in the air, and the outline of the Buddha hovered indistinctly in the darkness.
Youngwoo brought over a meditation cushion and quietly sat down.
Lately, this had become his real work.
Cultivating.
Breathing.
Looking inward.
Between wandering battlefields and being tormented by words in council halls, this alone remained entirely his own.
A time like this might never come again in his life.
Youngwoo knew that.
He was always moving from place to place.
Battles came without end.
He had crossed the boundary between life and death more times than he cared to count.
Days when he could remain in one place and simply sit were rare.
Time when no one called for him, when he did not need to draw a sword, when no order demanded that he run somewhere at once was rarer still.
He did not want to waste such a precious period on pointless matters.
The words of a man who wanted to become king.
The ambitions of men who wanted to found a country.
Assassination, excuses, threats, persuasion.
All of those things might matter.
But for Youngwoo, what had changed inside him mattered more now.
Since opening the middle dantian, both his body and mind had clearly changed.
Before he could properly examine what that change meant, he had been dragged back into the whirlpool of war and politics.
Now he needed to stop and look.
If the middle dantian had opened, would the upper dantian come next?
He did not know whether that was truly the proper law of cultivation, what such a boundary meant, or what result it would bring.
Still, if the path had long been described as lower dantian, middle dantian, and upper dantian, then his practice would naturally continue in that direction.
No.
That was not quite right.
Others could spend an entire lifetime striving for such attainments and never reach them, while Youngwoo somehow imagined that everyone else could do them and he alone was falling behind.
Youngwoo lightly touched the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and drew in a thin breath.
Cold air passed through his nostrils, brushed his chest, and descended deep into his lower abdomen.
The warmth of his dantian slowly awakened.
His body felt the cold of the hall, but his mind did not follow the cold.
He had asked them again and again to light a fire.
They still had not done it.
It was a large temple, but a poor one.
The donations had dried up after the Liao nobles fled.
He had to do his utmost while he still had the chance to concentrate.
For now, that was all that mattered.
Outside, the night deepened over Liaoyang.
The temple gates closed.
Snow continued to fall.
And inside the darkened hall, one man sat alone and began once more to trace the road within himself.