305.
Spring in Yangzhou — "For a Moment, the World Stilled"
陽州小春
One month after Yangzhou was taken, the city quietly came back to life.
Heavy rain fell over the market that had once burned.
When the rain passed, children ran out into the alleys to play.
Among them, soldiers briefly returned to being people rather than troops.
They took up shovels and leveled the paddies of the military farms.
By day, they wove straw sandals.
By night, they leaned against earthen walls and slept.
Inside the city, the shouts of training were replaced by the sound of hammers.
Collapsed walls were repaired.
Bridges were rejoined.
The pillars of burned shrines were raised again.
Soldiers and townspeople worked side by side.
When evening came, lights were lit in the market.
The smell of grilling meat mingled with the scent of wine.
Park Seong-jin watched the lively city from afar.
"So people can still laugh like this, even in the middle of war."
Song I-sul replied,
"Laughter is stronger than war.
You can fight until death, but if you lose even a moment of laughter, everything is already over."
By day, Park Seong-jin worked alongside the soldiers in the military fields.
At night, he climbed to a small ruined hermitage behind the camp and sat quietly.
The wind brushed the grass.
A stream struck stones and flowed on.
He rested his sword across his knees and closed his eyes.
"To win without fighting is, in the end, to govern oneself."
His breathing lengthened.
With each inhalation, dust settled.
With each exhalation, the heart emptied.
The soldiers watched him in silence.
At some point, they began to sit with him.
Some closed their eyes.
Some gently placed their hands on the ground.
That small hermitage became a doryang (道場), a place of the Way, within the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Yun Dam stood atop the ramparts, gazing south toward Jiangnan.
Maps of Yangzhou and its waterways lay spread beside him.
"From here," he said softly.
The tip of his brush stretched southward—
to Nanjing, Huai'an, Zhenjiang, and far beyond, to Fuzhou (福州).
At dusk, soldiers perched along the furrows of the fields, passing wine.
One soldier said,
"Even if the war goes on, having just one day like this makes life worth living."
Park Seong-jin accepted the cup and replied,
"That single day is more precious than a thousand."
From a distance, Yun Dam heard the exchange.
He smiled.
"That is Dao itself.
Knowing one day of peace is greater than a thousand days of fighting."
During that brief spring, Yangzhou was not yet a state.
Yet there, people learned for the first time what the intent of a state could be.
A Night in Yangzhou — "The One Who Crosses the Wall"
The night was deep.
Unlike before, the city lay peaceful and still.
Only the stream of the military fields flowed on the wind.
Park Seong-jin sat alone at the hermitage site.
Before him stood a humble stone lantern.
The ember within flickered in the breeze.
He did not place his sword beside him.
His mind no longer wavered even without it.
Both hands rested on his knees.
His breath drew slowly, deeply inward.
At first, nothing seemed to change.
Then the breath grew long.
Inhalation and exhalation joined into one.
At that moment, he felt a strange warmth about three chi below the navel.
The heat was faint.
Then it grew distinct.
Like a slender thread, it began to rise upward along the spine.
His breath stopped for a moment.
It felt as though his heart paused, just briefly.
Then a vibration arose, as if all the channels of his body had become one.
Eyes closed, he understood.
"So this is the wall."
Until now, he had driven qi by force.
Until now, he had moved qi by intention.
Now, qi moved of its own accord.
He followed the flow.
In his ears, the sound of the stream and the sound of his heartbeat came together.
The rhythm of the heart and the sound of water wove into one.
When the wind passed, his pulse swayed.
When the flame flickered, his breath flickered with it.
In that moment, he realized that he and the world were joined in a single grain.
"Just as my sword and I were once one,
now I and the world are one."
His mind was still.
All sounds were heard at once.
The beating of insect wings.
The minute movements within the soil.
Even the snoring of soldiers far off in the fields.
All of it entered a single breath.
His body grew heavy, then light.
His breath seemed to break—then continued.
He felt as though the shell of his body had fallen away.
Blood circulated.
Qi flowed.
That flow spilled outward again.
He saw it clearly.
Then a minute sound arose.
Duduk—
Something burst open within his body.
The sound arrived as release.
At that instant, the Middle Dantian (中丹田) opened.
It was not flame.
It was light.
The light climbed the spine, linking the chest,
linking the shoulders,
linking the eyes,
linking the crown of the head.
Then everything subsided.
He did not know how much time had passed.
Moonlight stretched long across the hermitage floor.
A single current of wind swept over it.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
They were clear.
No flame burned within them.
Only the night itself was fully contained there.
Park Seong-jin smiled.
"I will not die easily now."
He quietly brought his palms together.
Between his hands, a faint warmth could be felt.
It was not an explosion.
It was not a torrent.
It was the quietly circulating vitality of life.
The gate of Dao (道) he had long sought.
The words touched his heart:
From here, study truly begins.
At dawn, drums sounded atop the ramparts—
the drums announcing morning.
Park Seong-jin slowly rose and watched the soldiers descend toward the fields.
Their steps flowed like ripples of water.
In Yangzhou's peace, the Middle Dantian had opened.
It was chance.
Seong-jin believed it to be the price of having brought peace.
That by doing what was right,
Heaven had bestowed its blessing.