Chapter 2: Five Years Underground

Chapter 2: Five Years Underground

When the flash faded, Pung first made sure he was still alive.

The monster that had been about to tear out his throat lay embedded in the far wall of the cavern. Its body twitched a few times, black blood seeping between its scales, then went limp.

Only moments ago, Pung had been a boy with a broken shoulder and ankle, unable to fend off even a single bite. Now the monster had been hurled across the cavern by a swing of his arm he had not even known he was making. The stone wall where its back had struck bore cracks wider than its body.

He had no time to understand the difference. Power surged from the gold ring and raced up his arm with enough force to shake his bones. An unfamiliar energy followed from the silver ring, burrowing into his flesh and veins.

“Off… I have to get them off.”

He tugged at the rings on both index fingers, but neither budged. The more he dug at their edges with his nails, the more blood seeped from his torn skin—and even that blood soaked into the gold and silver surfaces.

Then his body began to move on its own.

Crack.

His broken left shoulder shifted back into place. His twisted right ankle followed with another crack, the bones locking together. Each time a bone returned to its proper position, his flesh wove itself anew from within. The more his wounds closed, the deeper the pain became.

This was not healing.

It was destruction and remaking.

The gold ring’s power forced his rigid muscles and bones apart, while the silver ring’s energy sealed the tears and set his twisted veins in order. The two forces, interlocked through flesh and energy, coursed through his entire body regardless of his will. Blocked acupoints were forced open one by one, and wherever the forces passed, black, sticky sweat seeped through his skin.

Pung curled in on himself, unable even to scream. When the power climbing his spine reached the crown of his head, his vision went white. When the energy coiling after it descended, all feeling vanished from his body. He had no idea how many times he lost consciousness and regained it.

When he opened his eyes again, his body stank like rotten blood mixed with mud. His wounds had healed, leaving only faint marks, but beneath his skin, a strength unlike anything he had known writhed without rest. It felt as though a raging torrent of unknown origin was trapped inside him, searching for a way out.

He barely managed to raise his upper body before the two rings began pulling his limbs about at will.

His feet spread shoulder-width apart, and his waist was forced lower. The tip of his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. A long breath drew in through his nose, and the energy gathered in his lower belly was pulled up along his spine. After passing over the crown of his head, the current descended through his face and chest and returned below his navel.

No words or meaning entered his mind. The rings simply made him repeat the same movements, again and again, engraving them into his body.

When Pung hesitated, the gold ring tightened around his left index finger. His arm rose of its own accord, his newly remade shoulder and elbow turning roughly. The instant his fist cut through the air, even the energy inside him rushed toward the back of his hand.

Boom!

His fist had not touched the stone.

Even so, a hollow gouged itself into the nearby stone floor. Cracks raced from it all the way to the cavern wall, sending old stone dust pouring down like rain. The recoil shot back up his arm and struck his chest. Pung spat blood and fell to his knees. Perhaps the energy had strayed from its appointed course and battered his meridians; each breath felt as though a knife were tearing through his insides. But instead of an answer, the two rings drove another surge of brute power and energy into his lower belly.

If he wanted to survive, he had to move.

Pung forced his trembling legs beneath him, and his body settled on its own into the stance the rings had engraved in it. As he drew his breath down into his lower belly, the scattered, rampaging power began to gather in one place. Holding on to it, he guided it up his spine. Again and again, the energy veered away from his acupoints and tore through his flesh. Whenever he forced it onward, black blood rose into his throat.

When he collapsed, he sat up again. When he collapsed once more, he sat up once more.

After he had endured several such attempts, the energy finally rounded the crown of his head, passed through his chest, and settled below his navel.

A warmth no larger than a fingernail formed there.

He had barely managed to complete a small circuit. With every additional turn, his torn meridians healed a little more. Pung did not know that the place where the warmth gathered was called the dantian. He understood only that when he steadied his breathing, the power stayed there, and when his breathing faltered, it raged in every direction.

When he no longer had the strength to move even a finger, Pung collapsed onto the damp floor.

That was his first training session.

Underground, he could not watch the sun rise or set. Hunger told him that time had passed; waking from sleep made him suppose another day had gone by. Pung sliced the dead monster’s flesh thin and dried it near the blue stone. He drank the water trickling down the cavern walls, and by following the earthen tunnels through which the red flower’s roots spread, he found edible fruit and wild yams as well.

One day, while wandering through the narrow gaps beyond the wall, he discovered an animal burrow with sunlight filtering through leaves. The opening was barely wide enough for his body, but it was unmistakably a path to the outside.

Pung crawled upward, oblivious to the skin scraping off his palms and knees. The smell of grass mingled with the smell of earth, and he could even hear the faint calls of birds. He had come so close that he felt he could touch the sunlight if he reached out.

Then the two rings dug deep into his fingers.

The energy in his dantian surged backward and slammed into his chest. Blood burst from his mouth as his body seized. Unable to catch hold of anything, Pung tumbled down the sloping burrow.

When he came to, he was lying on the cavern floor again.

The rings he had thought were treasures that had saved his life had become chains at the threshold of freedom.

Pung refused to train. Even when the rings tried to lift his limbs and force him upright, he stayed seated against the wall. When they moved his arms and legs of their own accord, he let his whole body go limp. He gritted his teeth and endured as the golden light forced his muscles and bones apart and the silver light drove energy into the marrow of his bones. But harder to bear than the pain was the endless silence.

In his sleep, he heard Hwang-u calling his name. He would start awake to find only the blue stone’s glow filling the cavern. No matter how often he answered, only the echo of his own voice returned. More frightening than not knowing how much time had passed was the way the faces in his memory were slowly fading.

“Good fortune dwells in a smiling face.”

When he spoke the words his mother had so often said, the cavern repeated them several times. Pung listened until the echoes died, then buried his face between his knees.

“Uncle Hwang-u will smack me on the back first. Ask where I’ve been all this time.”

Once again, only his own voice answered.

If he died here, no one would ever know where he had gone. Hwang-u might search the mountains, fail to find even his body, and go on waiting. Old Granny Donggu would never have received her medicine.

After a long while, Pung raised his head.

If he moved only as the rings commanded, he would surely collapse at the exit again. Yet sitting here enduring the pain would not get him outside either. If this power was what bound him, he first had to understand how it worked.

That day, Pung stood again.

When the rings made him thrust out a fist, he memorized the sensations that first arose in his shoulder and along the inside of his arm. He watched, too, which acupoint the energy passed through just before reaching the back of his hand. At first, all he could manage was to follow where his body was dragged and withdraw his strength a moment too late. His fist stopped only after shattering a stone pillar.

Pung rolled across the floor to dodge the flying fragments. The knuckles of his right hand split, and his arm went numb, but this time he did not immediately repeat the stance. He submerged his hand in cold water and steadied his breathing, waiting for the wild energy to settle.

The rings tightened around his index fingers, as though urging him on.

“I’m hurt.”

Pung gritted his teeth and kept his hand in the water.

“We’ll do it when I’ve healed.”

The golden light pulsed a few more times, then weakened. It was the smallest of concessions, but Pung did not miss it. Move when his body could bear it. Heal his injuries first. That was the first rule he imposed on the rings.

Next, just before his fist reached the stone pillar, he tried dispersing the power from his dantian below his shoulder. He sent half back along his side and stopped the rest at his wrist. Though his fist touched the stone, there was no thunderous crash.

Crack.

Only a single thin fissure appeared in the surface.

Pung looked from his fist to the pillar and back again. Before, even when he struggled not to break anything, the floor had been gouged. This time, the power had obeyed his will.

From that day onward, mastery of his training slowly changed hands. When the rings made him step forward, Pung divided the force before pushing off the floor. Where his body had once flown all the way to the wall, now he stopped three paces ahead. When a wild animal followed the scent of food into the burrow and lunged at him, he did not use his fist. He pressed down only on the earth beside its forepaws. The animal lost its balance, rolled a few times, and fled unharmed.

The wind entering through the burrow changed its character several times. The scent of flowers drifted past, then the sound of cicadas swelled; after the cold winds came the smell of rotting leaves. In that time, the small circuit widened into a current linking his entire body. Even with his eyes closed, Pung could distinguish where drops of water fell and how animals moved beyond the rocks.

Choosing the strength that would leave a stone unbroken was far harder than breaking it.

Even after he learned how not to shatter stone, the power inside him still felt like an unfamiliar guest.

One night, Pung stopped circulating his energy and sat quietly. He did not resist when the rings tugged at his arms. When the energy strayed from his acupoints and tore through his flesh, he did not force it away. Instead of holding the power in place or casting it out, for the first time he followed it to the end, tracing where it arose and where it sought to flow.

Fear, pain, the energy raging at will—he pushed none of it away. He accepted it all as it was.

Then he saw that the raging torrent trapped inside him, searching for an outlet, had in fact been flowing with his own breath. For the first time, the current the rings had forced through him and the breath Pung exhaled aligned without discord. The power was still immense, but it was no longer unfamiliar.

From the moment he began to accept and feel everything, the rings no longer controlled Pung’s body.

The sensation of something pulling his arms vanished.

The compulsion that drove his body to press his tongue upward and lower his waist quietly withdrew. All that remained was the stance Pung had chosen and the breath he guided himself. As the energy rose to the crown of his head, passed through his chest, and returned to his dantian, the energy channels throughout his body resonated softly. Five years of circulating that energy had left their traces deeply embedded in his skin, muscles, and bones.

Pung slowly raised a hand.

He raised it because he wanted to, because the choice was his.

When he clenched his fist, energy from his dantian traveled along his arm and gathered at his fingertips. When he opened his hand, it returned obediently to his lower belly. Nothing urged him to destroy. Nothing barred him from stopping. For the first time in five years, every bit of power within his body belonged wholly to Pung.

The two rings were silent.

The coercion was over.

He was the one who had chosen to accept everything.

Pung wrapped the red flower he had carried from the abyss—the spirit herb with every strand of root intact—in wet moss and tucked it into a high crevice in the cavern.

He changed into the clothes he had found when he first arrived and placed the faded book in his traveling bag. Then he carefully packed the red flower he had wrapped in wet moss and read the words on the final page once more.

When you are truly ready, the rest will find its own way to you.

He still did not know where the rings had come from or why they had held him captive. Pung closed the book and looked toward the light beyond the burrow.

“This time, I decide.”

Even when he reached the exit, the rings did not stir.

Five years earlier, in this very place, the two rings had seized Pung’s limbs and hurled him back down the burrow. Now they did not bind so much as a fingertip.

Pung bent his knees and channeled into both legs the strength that, for the first time, was entirely his own.

He kicked off the ground.

His body pierced the narrow earthen passage like an arrow. The darkness that had imprisoned him for five years fell away behind him in a rush. Before he could reach out a hand, the light at the end of the burrow struck his face.

Mountain wind, the scent of grass, and the smell of earth warmed by sunlight swept over him all at once.

Using his movement art, Pung leaped skyward and sped straight toward the summit. Just as he thought he had reached it, he was already sailing beyond it.

Pung was flying higher than the mountain, farther still.

His eyes burned with tears.

For the first time in five years, nothing held him back.

It was deep into the night when he reached his home village. Familiar walls and rooftops emerged from the darkness, but each was a little different from what he remembered. The trees had grown tall. Some houses bore unfamiliar nameplates. Hwang-u’s house looked smaller and shabbier than before.

Lamplight shone through the paper window. From inside came the sound of pages turning and deep, heavy breathing. It was Hwang-u, beyond any doubt. He was alive, still there in the same place.

Pung stopped in the lane about ten paces from the door. He had spent five years trapped in darkness without meeting another person. He wanted to rush over and call out, but his feet would not move.

The heavy breathing seeping through the crack in the door brought back a voice from his childhood.

“You little rascal! You went to the northern cliff again, didn’t you? A good smack on the back is what you need to knock some sense into you.”

“I only wanted to dig up one more root.”

It was the voice that had scolded him while pressing a packet of medicine into his hands, pretending to give in. That gruff voice was just beyond a single door, yet Pung could not bring himself to reach for it.

The child who had fallen into the cavern five years ago was gone. Hwang-u’s breathing beyond the wall, the faint stirrings of the sleeping village—Pung’s eyes and ears discerned them all. None of it could unsettle him as a threat. Yet even Pung still did not know what he had become, or where the two rings had come from.

Pung bit his lip. At last, he swallowed the name that had risen to his throat and silently stepped back. The lamplight still stained the paper window yellow, but he went no closer.

That night, Pung sat on the mountainside overlooking the village and did not sleep at all. As long as this unknown power dwelled within him, if someone followed its trail, wherever he stayed would become the place danger reached. He could not bring that shadow into the village.

Before dawn, he took the red flower and the book from his bag. The spirit herb had led him into the abyss, but underground it had borne fruit that kept him alive. Hwang-u would not use it carelessly. He would put it to proper use where it was truly needed.

Pung cut a blank strip from the book’s margin and spread it across his knees. Then he dipped the tip of a twig in ink.

Dear Uncle Hwang-u,

It’s Pung. I’m alive.

The ink slowly spread across the paper. Pung swallowed a trembling breath and wrote the next words.

I haven’t forgotten your kindness. I can’t come back yet, but when I can be certain my power won’t hurt anyone, I promise I’ll come and see you.

Please stay well.

A broad space remained below the last line. After a long hesitation, Pung added a few small words.

I’ve missed you so much.

He went down to the village as dawn was breaking and waited until no one was nearby. Then he set the red spirit herb and the letter beside Hwang-u’s door. He weighed the paper down with a small stone so it would not blow away, then bowed deeply toward the house.

“I promise I’ll come back.”

It was a promise he had not found the courage to deliver in person.

Pung climbed the mountain path, seeking a place away from people where he could bring his body’s sudden counterattacks under control. Before a short cliff cutting across the ridge, he bent his knees and sent the energy in his dantian evenly into both legs. The instant he pushed off the ground, he drew half the power back.

His body glided lightly through the air. When he landed on the rock opposite, only a few fallen leaves were pushed outward in a circle beneath his feet. But one slender thread of energy he had failed to retrieve rode the wind beyond the crest. It was so faint that even Pung noticed the trace only belatedly.

Pung looked down at the two rings on his fingers. Then he spotted stone betony in the cliff’s shadow and crouched beside it. As he cleared away the soil without damaging the stem and felt for the direction of its fine roots, a movement unlike the wind caught at the edge of his senses.

It was no wild animal.

Footsteps were almost inaudible, but just before each foot touched the fallen leaves, he sensed a minute shift of weight. The energy flowing within that person’s body was sharp as a needle, yet so deep he could scarcely fathom its bottom.

The presence was approaching Pung without hesitation.

Still holding the roots of the herb he had been digging up, Pung slowly raised his head.