The Visit – A Letter from Hwang Hak (黃鶴)
It looked as though a man had fallen from the sky.
Clad in white, with white beard flowing, white hair streaming, and a white staff in hand, he descended lightly onto the slope of Namsan.
He was dressed as though he ought to appear in a graveyard at midnight.
Everything about him was white.
That single sentence seemed to explain him.
I am an immortal.
A man like an immortal.
He stood as if declaring precisely that.
An aura difficult to approach clung to his entire body.
Yet at the same time, he seemed light enough to vanish with the wind.
Weight and emptiness stood together within him.
To call him an immortal would not have sounded strange.
"Hmm… how insolent…"
He muttered as he landed.
The words were low, like a soliloquy, yet carried clearly to everyone present.
"You had me come and go for this—just to play here?"
The tip of his staff tapped the ground.
A small cloud of dust rose.
Soun knew the words were meant for him.
Jimin maintained her stance, though her gaze trembled slightly.
"And who might you be, Elder?"
Soun's voice did not change.
"You mean to say you received no notice?"
The white beard swayed in the wind.
"We had no visitor's card," Soun replied evenly.
"We do not know who you are. Many people come seeking us. And who might you be?"
The air along the mountainside tightened strangely.
When someone arrived, Jimin instinctively tried to stop her training and straighten her body.
She believed receiving guests was her responsibility.
It was an unspoken division of roles that had settled between them.
Since Soun was young, she thought she ought to step forward.
She worried he might not understand the etiquette of the martial world.
More than anything, she could not simply leave that unpredictable little brat unattended.
Moreover, their visitor was one of the Ten Great Masters under Heaven.
A guest had arrived; courtesy demanded greeting.
Jimin moved to release her stance and rise.
But Soun paid no mind to the fact that Hwang Hak stood right before him.
With the switch in his hand, he struck and pushed at Jimin's legs and knees, the sound sharp and clear.
Tak.
The switch brushed her shin.
Jimin's face flushed red, but she did not move.
There was no choice.
"Do not straighten your legs. Maintain the chamjeong stance."
Soun's tone did not waver in the slightest.
"You have memorized it now. Hand me the paper."
He took the paper from her hand.
"Recite what you have memorized. Repeat it until it flows smoothly."
Hwang Hak stood right before them.
Yet Soun's gaze remained fixed solely on posture.
He lightly pushed Jimin's shoulder again with the switch.
Her body slid back without resistance.
"If you maintain chamjeong with a proper heart—正心—you will not be pushed back."
He had explained it many times already.
If the mind was gathered in one place, external force would not shake the body.
But when attention drifted to movement and breathing, the center collapsed easily.
Because no true force had been set.
The meaning of standing without bracing had not yet reached the body.
Soun was openly ignoring Hwang Hak.
Who was Hwang Hak?
A supreme master standing at the pinnacle of the martial world.
A sage who had shunned fame and strife, living in lofty solitude.
The rivers and lakes had exalted his name, and he had lived worthy of it.
And that very man stood directly before them.
"Apply strength.
Stand firm like Mount Tai.
You must not wobble and fall backward."
Soun's words were still directed only at Jimin.
Hwang Hak felt himself slighted.
Yet before anger came a curious interest.
His eyes narrowed like a child who had discovered an unfamiliar toy.
To ostentatiously instruct martial arts while completely disregarding him—
It was something he had never experienced since stepping into the jianghu.
A sense of dissonance passed through him.
The familiar order did not function here.
Hwang Hak cleared his throat.
"Hmph."
A universal signal.
Look at me. Acknowledge me.
But Soun did not even turn his head.
"The force gathers at your toes. Shift it to your heels."
He adjusted Jimin's stance and spoke calmly.
Soun did not know the customs and hierarchies of the martial world well.
Yet even outside that world, he knew this behavior was not considered proper.
Even so, he did not turn around.
To him, this was merely another brute who had once come to the General's household to throw his weight around.