Book 22 Chapter 3

I'm sorry, in my next life, I'll make sure…….

-Secrets of the Three Talents

"Silver, silver Sojae?

Mo Yonghui was washing a rag by the well when he spotted Silver Snowflake in the distance and paused. But it was only for a moment, as he stood up and threw the mop and washing utensils into the back of the well like a lightning bolt. The cleaning skirt tied around her waist also blew into the back of the well like the wind.

'Okay! Okay, now we're checking the fit! Sleeves! Pants!'

The cuffs and bibs were pulled on and off, and the laces were quickly disposed of. To the untrained eye, the whole process would have looked like a tornado passing over a well.

Finally, as I brushed off my sleeves and stretched out my chest, I heard a clean, soft voice.

"It's been a while, Mo Yong Confucius."

Thump! Thump!

His heart began to race as his name came out of her mouth.

"Oh, yeah, it's been a while…"

Mo Yonghui looked at Eunseulan and quickly looked away. It was strange. Ever since that night, when he had carried her drunkenly to her room, he had somehow found it difficult to look her in the eye. My mind wants to look at her, but my body reflexively keeps trying to run away. Mo Yonghui was now confused as to which part of him wanted to look at Eunseulan and which part wanted to avoid her.

I was lost. I was terrified that I couldn't figure out what was going on. I was scared, but I knew that if I looked at it like this, I would be sucked in. I go to the red lips and my eyes glaze over.

Palpitations. His heart once again pounded furiously. Mo Yonghui reprimanded himself once again. He blamed his inability to maintain his composure on his lack of training, and he didn't think it was a natural reaction at all. But maybe it was his mood, or maybe it was the way Eunseulan's eyes looked at him.

"By any chance, do you think he's nefarious?

If that's the case, your only option is to jump off a cliff.

"Mo Yong Confucius?"

"What? The old days! Hmmm!"

At Tee's bewildered reply, Eun Seolan smiled awkwardly and pointed a finger at her head.

"There, on the head……."

"What? Your hair?"

Mo Yongyu was dumbfounded by the out-of-the-blue remark. In an unconscious reaction, he reached for his head and caught something fluttering in his hand.

There was! A cleaning cloth is…….

"Oh, no… I mean… this is……."

It was great for dust, but it wasn't something I wanted to show anyone, especially not the woman I had in mind.

"Cook, you look great, like a new poem in the wash."

Mo Yonghui's hands clutched at his headband, his mind racing toward a cliff of no return.

"Then again, it must be hard for someone to marry Mo Yong Confucius to maintain that high level of cleanliness."

"No, I would never think of giving Silver Sojae a hard time… I can do the cleaning and stuff……."

Mo Yonghui angrily waved his hands in the air, but then froze in place.

"Did I just say something I shouldn't have?

A cold sweat broke out on his back, and he braced himself for a warning.

"……."

But there was no response from the other party. Eunseulan was just as frozen as he was, her head bowed and speechless. Her cheeks were flushed for some reason. A heavy silence fell between them.

"We have to get out of this somehow!

In his confusion, Mo Yonghui hurriedly found an excuse.

"Oh, no, that's right… that's right… that's right… I didn't mean to say Sojae… I meant Sojae, the one I'm going to marry."

The blood drained from Eunseulan's face at his gibberish excuse.

"Oh, yeah, that's right, I get it now."

His voice, sharp as a knife, reminded me of a nor'easter.

"What? Uh, what……."

I felt like I had made a huge mistake, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. No matter how skilled he was with the sword, he was an idiot when it came to relationships, especially with women.

"I don't know who you are, but I hope you find a nice Sojae to marry. I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's not my business, and I wish you well."

Silver Snowflake whirled around, her face cold. For a moment, light flickered in the corners of her eyes, as if they were filled with tears. Mo Yonghui's eyes widened.

"Wait a minute, Silver Sojae, that's not it, that's not it, that's not about Silver Sojae, that's not… you can always interject, interject, interject!"

He stretched out his hand toward the silver snowflake and cried out in desperation, not knowing what he was saying.

"……!"

Blushing, Eunsulan turned around, her large eyes tinted with suspicion. Her gaze lingered on her outstretched fingertips.

"……What does that mean?"

Oops!

Finding a tangled bundle of hair in his outstretched hand, Mo Yonghui hastily hid it behind his back again.

"This, not this."

"Then what did you mean by what you just said?"

This was the last chance. No matter how dull his vocabulary, he recognized it. His primal instincts, his manly survival instincts, were screaming at him. That this was a crucial moment, when something would be decided.

"If you do it wrong, there's no tomorrow!

Nervously, he began to frantically search for words to reply to Eunuch Lan. However, all of his learning and knowledge, including the Five Books, the Book of Sayings, and the knowledge of the Martial Arts, were useless at this moment. His inexperience with women and his lack of flexibility were pushing him into a corner at this moment, and as always, time was not infinite.

"That's it!"

Eunseulan finally lost her patience and shouted.

"What a cowardly thing for a man to do, this is the story of the day!"

His voice was filled with disappointment. Mo Yonghui's mind reeled in shock.

'That, that day…….'

But how could he forget the day she collapsed in a heap, still remembering the warmth of her back.

As I recalled the events of the day, my brain suddenly felt like it was heating up. My vision blurred.

"I don't even know how much courage it took for a man to give up…… with barely a hair on his head!"

On that day, her defenseless face, which he had seen so closely that they were almost touching, filled Mo Yonghui's mind. Her ebony hair, fair and warm skin, exquisite eyes, dainty nose, and moist red…….

Mo Yonghui's face was now so ripe that it could burn. His head had already gone blank, and he couldn't control his complexion with his inner qi. In the meantime, a question came to mind.

"…That day, standing… were you awake?"

"And if you did, would that change anything?"

Eunsulan blinked, her face a shade of red.

"Oh, no, not that, but……."

He began to think about what he would say in his suicide note this evening.

-Sorcerer, I'm sorry. In my next life, I'll do it again. …….

Eunseulan followed up with a strike at Mo Yonghui, who was sweating profusely as he plotted his next move in the suicide note.

"Horny is bad, but indecisive is just as bad!"

Hmmm!

The words became an awl and stabbed Mo Yonghui in the chest.

"So much for waiting, is it fun to burn your liver? Does a woman have to speak first? Shame on you, I'm a girl too! Do you understand?"

"Oh, yeah! I get it."

I was stunned into silence.

"Idiot!"

With the final blow, Eunseulan vanished into thin air. Mo Yonghui didn't dare to catch her as she fled. His courage had already run out, and he had no more to squeeze out.

"Idiot?"

Mo Yonghui, who was left behind, pondered over Eunseulan's words. There was no room for refutation. It seemed that her assessment was true.

* * *

As Mo Yonghui stared dumbfoundedly in the direction where Eunseulan had disappeared, he heard a familiar voice in his ear.

"Tsk, tsk, what are you doing?"

Mo Yonghui jerked back in surprise.

"Noya?!"

An old man walked out from behind the branches of the well and looked at him with a pitying look in his eyes as he held the teddy bear in his mouth. It was Old Man Hyuk-jung.

"Oh, hello?"

"What use is a man if he can't read a woman's heart?"

The old man clicked his tongue and said. Mo Yonghui's face turned hot.

"Well, I'm not an expert, so I'm not in a position to say anything, but……. Well, never mind. By the way, it's been a while."

It had been more than two months since the old man had disappeared with nothing more than a few assignments and two nasty teachers. I hadn't expected to see him at the Heavenly Martial Academy, but there was nowhere this old man couldn't go if he wanted to.

"Yes, it's been a while, how have you been?"

"Huh? Oh, I've been a little busy with a few things. I'm looking for Mia for thirty thousand li……."

His tone was casual. He didn't seem to want to go into detail, so I didn't probe further.

"So, have you made any progress?"

The old man got straight to the point.

"I'm sorry, Noya."

Mo Yonghui bowed his head deeply. He had received favorable training from Yin Dao and Ice Sword, but the results had not been very satisfactory. An invisible wall stood in his way.

"Well, there you go. I wasn't expecting much. It's progress for a guy who wasn't even a genius and was once called a demigod. No matter how much genius you have, it won't come easily to you."

That seemed like a lot to take in, and Mo threw up his hands.

"Chu, don't call me a genius, I don't deserve it, it's too much for a genius like me."

Mo Yonghui's face stiffened. He was sincere without a hint of falsehood. Only those who have the ability to change the times are not ashamed to be called geniuses. Mu Xin had lived through an era of war and left an indelible mark on the history of Wulin. But he himself, who had yet to step out of the shadows of Sword Castle and take even half a step forward, lacked neither the talent nor the fortitude to do so.

"Whether you are a genius or not is not yet something you can judge for yourself. You just have to somehow unlock the secret and master it."

"If you're talking about a secret, it's ……."

"Yeah, about that. How are those two doing?"

"You're still here."

"Hmph, I see you're still holding a grudge, and only the one who took you down deserves to see it, and they're going to have to do a lot of work, you pathetic little bastards."

In the old man's eyes, their demands were nothing more than a ploy to avoid joining together, not because they wanted to find someone who was really good.

"But it's also true that you'll have to be that good anyway. The enemies you'll have to fight in the future will be more advanced than that."

What kind of enemies do we have to fight? Mo Yonghui was stunned. His current goal was to avenge his humiliation at the volcano. The invisible enemy was so unreal that he doubted its existence. Perhaps it would still be so if it weren't for the volcano.

"Good, then I'll teach you a trick to beat them, so you'll be grateful for the oche struggle, mhahahaha!"

I said with a smirk and a confident tone.

"Is there really such a thing?"

It wasn't a gap that could be bridged quickly with tricks and tips; the more I trained, the more I realized the gap. I was still a baby compared to them, and I still had a long way to go to get to where they were.

"Well, of course there is. I was going to teach you this later, but I had to change my plans. If you don't realize this, you can't move on to the next step……."

"What is that?"

"I don't know exactly."

It was an off-the-cuff response.

"Yes?"

It was ridiculous, but it wasn't really a joke.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, my dear, I'm just a messenger. I don't know anything about it, but I can't say I've gotten the essence of it. It was left to me by a friend of mine, and he says it's the key to the Dry Garden."

In other words, if you don't realize this, you won't be able to master the martial arts of the Qianlong Harmony Sutra.

"Teach me."

Mo Yonghui knelt before the old man and bowed his head. The ultimate teaching must be accompanied by a corresponding example.

"Long ago, I was asked by a friend to teach you, Mo Yonghui."

"I will accept the teaching of refrain."

"Realize the three talents!"

And then he said.

"Done!"

The course was so short that I wasn't sure if it was a real course, and I wondered if it was a prank.

"You look like a stoned frog. Don't worry, I'm not kidding."

Mo Yonghui reflected for a moment, wondering if he had read her mind.

Regardless of the mystery behind it, one thing was clear: it was impossible to see results in the short term.

"What do you mean by the Three Realms, the Three Realms of Heaven and Earth?"

I asked for confirmation.

"Yes, that's it. Are there any other three goods?"

The tone was one of asking for the obvious.

"When you say the Three Jewels, you mean the Three Jewels?"

"Yeah, that's it!"

I wondered if it was me, but was there something big enough to be a secret?

The Three-Fold Sword. The word swordsmanship was just a generic term for the three basic techniques: the longitudinal slash of man, the transverse slash of earth, and the thrust of heaven. It was the first step in swordsmanship and the most basic of the basics.

"Isn't that a basic of basics?"

How is that supposed to be the secret weapon against salt ice?

Sparks flew from Mo Yonghui's head.

"Asshole, don't ignore the basics. Everything always starts with the basics, and these young people are all about getting things done right away, tsk, tsk, tsk."

"The end, the end!" cried the old man, dragging his tongue. Mo Yonghui, the schoolboy, was embarrassed and at a loss for words. He was even more embarrassed because his true intentions had been pointed out to him.

"Are you reflecting?"

Glancing at Mo Yonghui, the old man asked.

"Yes, my thoughts were short."

Mo Yonghui bowed his head and replied.

"Well, that's it. Next time, you won't. I trust you're not the kind of kid who's going to make the same mistake over and over again."

"Thank you, Noya."

The old man nodded in satisfaction.

"Then let us begin again. Open your ears and listen carefully. Without a clear understanding of the basics and fundamentals, all studying is just a waste of ideas. I don't know when the unity of heaven and earth turned into standing upright with a sword, but the secret is not that simple."

"Is that so?

It seemed like there was nothing more to be extracted from heaven and earth.

"My dear friend said. When you realize the secrets of Heaven, Earth, Yin, and the Three Talents, the path to Tai Chi opens up!"

Mo Yonghui stood up and took the words to heart.

"You will never arrive at understanding unless you ponder the meaning of these words. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I'll keep that in mind."

The answer was broken, but it was the secret of Samjae. The question that I had taken for granted like breathing and hadn't given much thought to was suddenly thrown into the conversation. There was no quick and easy answer.

"Haha, what do we do now, we'll just have to take a walk(踏步)…… for the time being until we crack this secret, or something like that?"

I thought I was taking steps, but then I realized that I wasn't even walking properly. This is why I wasn't even walking, I was bellyaching.