Sim Gwan didn't wake up the next morning.
He regained consciousness.
Difference being, he didn't remember the first ten minutes of being alive again. His mouth tasted like charcoal. His skin felt too tight. His teeth hurt, which was somehow the least of his problems.
Baek-Ha sat on the windowsill, reading a scroll upside-down.
"You're finally back," she said. "Was starting to worry I'd have to drag you to a cheap physician."
"Still might," he croaked.
She tossed him a water flask. "Drink. Don't talk."
He drank. Slowly. The water burned. He felt it chase through his body like a stream down a cracked cliff face. His qi responded less like fire now. More like smoke. Controlled. Dangerous, but… his.
"I broke through," he said hoarsely.
She gave a half-smile. "You screamed loud enough to wake the dead."
"They deserve it."
---
Later, while he was upright and mostly stable, Go Pil-Bae entered the room like a thundercloud. In one hand: a wine jug. In the other: three letters.
He dropped them at Gwan's feet.
"They came while you were drooling in your sleep."
Sim picked them up one by one.
The first was sealed in cheap wax. Simple paper. The symbol of the Howling Tiger Sect, barely legible.
> "Report your whereabouts. Elder Han demands you return within the month. Failure to respond will be considered abandonment.
P.S. — Baek-Ha's cooking is missed."
He smirked.
The second was folded with a strange elegance. Smooth parchment. Black ink.
> "You walk deeper into the Path with every bruise.
The next stage begins when you choose to protect, not survive.
I'll see you again before the moon turns twice."
— S.
Baek-Ha noticed his eyes shift. "Who's it from?"
"The umbrella woman."
She grunted. "Of course it is. Mysterious cult lady sending poems. How nice."
He didn't answer.
The third letter was the one that made him sit up straighter.
It was addressed in brushstroke handwriting he didn't recognize.
Inside:
> "Sim Gwan.
I know who you were before.
I was like you once. Before the reincarnation. Before the name changed.
When you're ready, come to Black Hollow Lake.
We're not alone."
He read it three times.
Then again.
Baek-Ha frowned. "What is it?"
He handed her the letter without think about the word "reincarnation"
She read it. Once. Twice.
Then folded it slowly.
"I don't like the sound of this."
Sim hesitated for a moment wondering why she didn't say something about the very obvious word "reincarnation.
"Neither do I."
Why.Why didn't she ask him about it.Not wanting to think of it any longer he banished the thought from his mind.
"But you want to go."
"I have to."
---
The next week passed in pain and progress.
Go Pil-Bae trained them both. Less like a master, more like a wrathful god with zero understanding of human limitations.
Baek-Ha focused on internal channeling building a qi core from her Body Tempering base. She was raw talent. Fast learner. Precise with movement.
But something was off.
She moved like someone who was running from something.
Not toward it.
Sim noticed.
Didn't ask.
Until she disappeared one morning.
---
She left a note:
> "I'll be back. Don't follow. If I'm not back in three days… burn the kitchen."
He didn't burn the kitchen.
But he asked Pil-Bae.
The old man frowned. "She left alone?"
"She was quiet."
"That girl's never quiet unless she's trying to not annoy you."
Sim looked out the window.
Then grabbed his blade.
---
He found her on the second night.
In a burned-down village south of the city.
The air smelled of wet ash and wilted plum trees.
She was sitting in the middle of a broken courtyard, barefoot, robes dirty. In front of her were two graves.
Simple. Stone-marked. Old.
Sim didn't speak.
She didn't look up.
"My mother was a healer. My father was a woodcutter. We lived here. Until the Black Viper Sect came."
Sim sat beside her.
She continued, voice hollow.
"They wanted territory. My father refused to kneel. They broke his legs. Killed him in front of us. Made my mother keep her eyes focused on his murder while they set fire to the rest."
Silence.
"I ran," she whispered. "I ran so far I forgot how it felt to be a person. Then I joined the Howling Tiger Sect. Cooked. Cleaned. Watched. Hid."
Sim's voice was soft. "Why tell me now?"
"Because I'm tired of hiding behind soup bowls and stupid smiles."
She turned to him. Her eyes weren't crying.
They were furious.
"I want to kill the Viper Sect."
He nodded once.
"Then we'll need to get stronger."
She blinked.
"You'll help?"
"We're friends," he said.
"I might be asking you to become a murderer."
He looked at the graves.
Then her.
Then back at the graves.
"Then I guess I'll start practicing my footwork."
---
They returned to Pil-Bae the next morning.
He didn't say a word.
Just pointed at the garden.
"Twenty rounds. Full power. If you fall, you clean the latrine with your tongue."
Baek-Ha and Sim Gwan stepped into the courtyard together.
For the first time…
They didn't spar.
They fought.
---
The sun burned overhead. Dust rose.
Sim's qi circled like fire behind his spine. Baek-Ha's aura swelled, lighter, sharper, unformed but eager.
They danced.
Strike. Parry. Slide.
Backfist. Knee. Palm.
Sweat poured.
Mud clung.
But they didn't stop.
Not for pain.
Not for air.
Not even when Baek-Ha slammed a fist into Sim's jaw and he staggered, laughing through the blood.
"You're holding back!" he yelled.
She shouted, "So are you!"
They stopped only when Pil-Bae hurled a wine jug at their heads.
It missed.
Barely.
"You're both idiots," he muttered. "But you're learning."
---
That night, under the moon, Baek-Ha sat beside Sim again.
Their shoulders touched.
This time, he didn't pull away.
She whispered, "We should leave soon."
"Yeah."
"Black Hollow Lake?"
"Yeah."
"You scared?"
He was.
Terrified.
But he said, "No."
She leaned her head on his shoulder.
And for the first time since waking in this body… he closed his eyes not in pain, but in peace.
---