Chapter 8
“So-ha. Do you think seclusion is child’s play?”
“Father.”
“I’ve heard all sorts of stories from the jianghu. Countless people have entered seclusion only to have their qi channels become tangled and end up half-paralyzed. Some were seized by inner demons and couldn’t even recognize their own parents.
They say one person, on the third night, suddenly claimed to have attained enlightenment and couldn’t stop laughing. When people found it strange and opened the door, they discovered the person clawing at their own chest with their fingernails until it was covered in blood.”
Father didn’t stop there.
“In severe cases, they say, people fall into qi deviation and die just like that. It’s incredibly dangerous.”
Mother set down her bowl of medicine.
“Dear.”
“Madam, we need to be clear about this.”
Father’s gaze remained fixed solely on me.
“Seclusion isn’t just shutting the door and studying. It means placing your body and mind on the edge of a blade in the dark. If something goes wrong, there won’t be time for anyone outside to help. By then, it’ll already be too late.”
Father wasn’t exaggerating. After looking into it myself, I understood just how dangerous seclusion was.
He wasn’t someone who would tell stories just to scare me.
Maybe it was everything he’d heard over the years, and his fear of losing his daughter. Perhaps that fear had overwhelmed him, leaving him unable to help it.
That was what made it hurt.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know anything. If you did, you couldn’t say such a thing.”
Father was truly resolute.
He didn’t even seem willing to listen to what I had to say today.
“The danger of seclusion is that you shut yourself away alone, and spend so long looking inward that, in the end, your own heart devours you. You lose the ability to tell what’s true from what’s false.”
I waited without interrupting him.
He must be worried about me.
“Your injuries haven’t even healed yet. What you need to do is tend to your wounded body and mind, not cultivate. Saying you’ll enter seclusion now is no different from recklessly jumping off a cliff with your eyes closed. Besides, you’re only fourteen.”
‘If you include my age from my previous life, I’m already past forty—but that’s a secret!’
“Stubbornness is simply refusing to yield your position, so one could even praise it as steadfastness.”
"Then..."
"But! Stubbornness turns into defiance, and defiance into obstinacy. Don’t act rashly. I can understand it as an immature impulse, but the time isn’t right yet.”
Everything he said sounded perfectly reasonable.
As Father said, I was young and terribly weak.
It could look like stubbornness and recklessness.
But that was exactly why it had to be now.
I shook my head and took Father’s hands in mine.
“What if that bastard Jin Mu-ak comes back?”
“Ahem. Why are you bringing that up now?”
“What if that piece of trash wearing a human face comes back and says he’s really going to take me this time? What could I do then? What should I do?”
“That’s…”
“I couldn’t do anything then. I couldn’t even run away, let alone get angry. Even though Mother was hurt, all I did was press my head into the dirt and thank my enemy for sparing my life.”
“Why would that be your fault?”
Father’s voice grew rough.
“You weren’t the one at fault that day. That evil man was. Your mother getting hurt and people dying were absolutely not your fault.”
“I understand that in my head. Of course I do.”
“Then why…?”
“I think about it every night. I wonder if things might have been different if I’d had the strength, if I’d been able to protect myself.”
Maybe I was just closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.
But that didn’t mean the same thing couldn’t happen again.
I didn’t want to go through the same thing again.
Even now, I could still mend the stable door.
“I never want to go through something like that again. It’s not because of my humiliation or my pride. I don’t want our family’s lives put in danger because of me anymore.”
“Why does it have to be you, of all people?!”
Father finally raised his voice.
“We adults will make the necessary preparations. If need be, we’ll find a way to flee to another town. So…”
I placed both hands neatly on my knees.
“I’m young. I understand that it may seem reckless. In your eyes, Father, it may seem laughable that I think I can do anything with a few old cultivation manuals.”
“I’m not stopping you because it’s laughable.”
I looked at Father.
“You’re stopping me because you love me.”
“……”
“And that wicked man said I had a spiritual root. Even if it’s a Five-Element Root that the world calls worthless, I’m qualified to begin cultivation.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to cultivate.”
“Through this incident, I’ve come to realize painfully just how powerless and inadequate I am.
Until now, thanks to you, I’ve grown like a delicate flower beneath the broad, warm shade of my parents. But I don’t want to remain an immature child any longer.”
‘Kids my age in this era are already getting married… and there’s been no shortage of marriage proposals for me, either.’
“I can still clearly picture you toddling around as a baby. How can you already be cultivating at the tender age of fourteen…?”
“Because I’m fourteen.”
“What do you mean?”
“The manuals say the younger you are, the better it is to begin cultivating. I hear that cultivation clans start training by the age of nine at the latest. I’m already late.”
“That’s only true of cultivation clans.”
Father gritted his teeth as he tried to persuade me.
“They have masters, physicians, spirit medicines, and adults to catch them if they fail. But what do you have? A few old cultivation manuals and reckless bravado.”
“No. I have you and Mother, Father. Having parents who support me is more reassuring than anything in the world.”
“Don’t try to persuade your father with words like that…”
“Father. I wish to do what I must, even now. Perhaps this, too, is a path guided by the Heavenly Dao.”
Father let out a groan and tried to smooth his beard.
I’d managed to get Father partway on board. Now it was Mother’s turn.
I turned to address Mother.
“Mother. Women in the mortal world put on rouge and powder, climb into a bridal palanquin, and entrust their fate to their husbands.
I know there have been marriage proposals for me, too. I could have children and live happily with my family.
But I don’t want to accept a fate that’s already been decided for me.”
At that, Father asked if I was staging a protest by declaring I wouldn’t get married. I had to clear up the misunderstanding.
“I, too, could wear a phoenix hairpin and a bridal crown, just as you both hope. I could have three children, become a demure young lady, and spend my life sewing up my husband’s torn clothes.”
“Then you could do that, So-ha.”
“But the life of a young lady who stays in her room embroidering doesn’t suit me.”
“You little…!”
“I want to wield a sword instead of a silver hairpin dagger. I want to carve out my own future. Even if storms rage along the way, I want to stride forward on my own two feet.”
Mother, who had been silently listening, finally had tears gather in her eyes.
“Mother, you promised me that. You said that even if the same thing happened an infinite number of times, you would protect me the same way.”
“Yes, I did. Of course I did.”
“You don’t know how many tears of joy I shed when I heard that. But as your daughter, I don’t want us to go through the same thing again. Please understand how I feel. Have I ever caused you two any trouble?”
“No, you haven’t. Never.”
Mother gently stroked the back of my hand.
“……My daughter, raise your head.”
“Yes.”
“Your eyes have changed so much in just that short time. It feels like you’ve gone far away in just a few days.”
“They’re the same as always.”
“It was like watching a brave man’s declaration before setting out to war. Dear, don’t you see the spirit of a bold general in So-ha?”
“A general, my foot… We should call a physician, Madam. Our daughter is a flower, a flower. Goodness, she’s so thin…”
Mother stroked my cheek, then gave it a gentle pinch.
“Don’t overdo it.”
“Why are you doing this too, Madam?”
Father looked at Mother in dismay, as if he couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Didn’t you say how dangerous seclusion is? As parents, we should stop her, not push her forward.”
Mother smiled faintly.
Like a flower bearing dew at dawn.
“Dear, does that child look like someone being pushed from behind?”
“…Ahem…”
“Even if we try to stop her, she’s resolved to do it, isn’t she? If we hold So-ha down, will that stop her heart? I see the bold spirit of the young man I fell for in So-ha. Hoho.”
“There are some things one simply can’t permit, and this is one of them. And what nonsense are you talking about? I mean, I’m not… in love with her now.”
Father glanced at me, then cleared his throat for no reason.
“Anyway, that’s not important. What if she gets hurt?”
“If she falls, we’ll help her back up. She’s not a little child anymore.”
Mother warmly stroked the back of my hand.
“So-ha. If something happens, remember what I told you. This mother will never let go of your hand.”
Silence fell over the room for a moment.
The wind passed by, gently stirring the paper window.
Father stroked his beard for a long while, then finally let out a deep sigh.
“How many days?”
“I’ll need at least a week.”
“Three days.”
“That’s too short.”
“Five days.”
“Father.”
"……Seven days. No longer."
I wondered just how reluctant he was.
The muscles in his jaw were twitching.
“But you must answer me at least once a day. No matter that you’re in seclusion, I won’t yield on that condition. If you don’t answer, I’ll break down the door and come in.”
“Understood. I’ll try.”
“Don’t misunderstand. I haven’t given my permission yet.”
“Then…?”
“You’re being so stubborn, so I’m just backing down for now. I don’t approve.”
“Thank you for granting me permission. Since it’s come to this, I’ll certainly attain the Dao and become an immortal.”
‘And not just that. I’m aiming for the peak. The greatest immortal.’
Father sighed again.
“I said I hadn’t given permission. Who on earth did you inherit that stubbornness from?”
“I told you. Whose daughter am I?”
“I wasn’t this reckless when I was young.”
“Mother said that when you were young, you went alone into the mountains to catch a tiger and wandered around for three days.”
“Madam.”
Mother calmly averted her gaze.
“Hahahaha!”
Only then did the air in the room lighten a little.
A little laughter seeped like dew into the heavy silence.
“Our daughter is extraordinary by nature, so she’ll be all right.”
“Hoho. Of course. At her age, she’s already recorded such intricate and wondrous principles in writing. Extraordinary indeed.”
I suddenly jerked my head up in surprise.
‘No way! It can’t be. Did she see that?’
“Mother. You didn’t read my books, did you?”
Mother tilted her head, looking surprised.
“Oh, you didn’t know?”
“You read them? All of them?”
“If my daughter stays up all night writing something, wouldn’t her mother be curious?”
“What… how much… No, how can you rummage through my room without permission?”
“Rummage? I gave birth to you. Don’t I have the right to know what my own daughter is thinking? And I was curious.”
“That’s an invasion of privacy.”
Father cleared his throat.
“I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t look at your diary.”
“I didn’t say I had a diary.”
‘She read it. She did. She saw it. I had it hidden… Still, thank goodness I didn’t write anything about my previous life.’
From the way she avoided my gaze, she’d definitely read it.
“Dad!!! That’s too much! Reading my diary is crossing the line!”
“Hahaha, I thought my daughter had what it takes to become the greatest scholar or prime minister in the Central Plains. But now she wants to become a cultivator. You never know what life will bring.”
“Now I have a reason to hurry with my seclusion training. My family’s privacy is this poorly protected? I’m going into seclusion right now!”
I said that, but I had to make thorough preparations.
Three days flew by in a flash, and before I knew it, the day I was to enter seclusion had arrived.
But Father was nowhere to be seen.
"Your father probably can’t bear to watch."
He really must not have liked it.
If his daughter ever got married, he’d probably be bedridden with a heart demon, wouldn’t he?
