Jang coaxed the silk square fully open. The candle's meek glow crawled across the fabric, revealing a surface neither wholly cloth nor paper— black damask threads shot through with veins of something harder, as though an artisan had woven soot with wire. A watermark of an eight-petalled lotus hovered just beneath the weave, visible only when he tilted the fragment. Its centre was dark as pitch, each petal fading to misty grey: a flower grown from shadow.
Across that ghost-blossom marched thirty-seven surviving lines of calligraphy. The initial, larger characters announced themselves with austere pride:
鐵蓮根經 卷參Iron-Lotus Root Canon · Scroll the Third
The brushwork was paradox: scholar-smooth strokes cut by abrupt military hooks, as if two hands had argued over every glyph. Here and there crimson margin notes clustered like blood droplets—martial annotations tightening theory into application. Above the title a square of sealing wax had once borne an elder's signet, but only a jagged rim remained, torn away long ago.
He traced the first small line with a fingertip that tingled just touching the ancient ink.
Iron bends; ink endures.
The phrase echoed Ma Gok's earlier warning, and a shiver chased up Jang's arms. Beneath it, more compact script arranged itself in paired clauses, each a riddle:
Sink the root beneath sight,drink thunder beneath breath.Lotus sleeps in marrow,wakes in silent Spring.
He could decipher perhaps two-thirds without reaching for the rough gloss of characters Kwan had drilled into him. That was enough for wonder. Archivist gossip drifted back: half-joking tales of a Proto-Ironshadow clan that cultivated "shadow-borne Qi," their manuals divided into five botanical phases—root, stem, leaf, bud, bloom. Only scraps were said to survive, each lost piece a war-prize between sect scholars and demonic cult raiders. Seeing the truth in his hands left his knees weak.
If there was a Root Canon and this was Scroll Three, then others existed—or had. A quest bigger than the walls of Ironshadow cracked open in his imagination; but dreams could wait. Tonight he needed proof—proof that even a servant might taste the marrow of such power.
He withdrew a wisp of rice-paper stolen from the pigment crates earlier that evening. Its fibres were coarse, speckled with husk fragments— kitchen tally grade— but it would serve. From a little lacquered box he'd filched in the kiln shed he produced a thumb-length ink-stick: lotus-char, ground from the very ashes he and Won-Il had shovelled. Ash into ink. Ink into oath.
He poured a thimble of rainwater from his sleeve pouch onto a broken saucer, set the ink-stick against the glaze, and began the slow circle. Press, lift, drag, flick. The mantra matched the motion; with each scrape the water blackened, thick and living. Charcoal fumes mixed with the candle's fat smoke, turning the storeroom air dense and alchemical.
Satisfied, Jang dipped a stolen brush. Its goat hairs quivered like nervous spirits. Breath held, he mirrored the first header stroke onto his scrap: the iron radical, square and stubborn, then the lotus curve layered atop. The paper bled— fibres too crude— but that failure reminded him: imperfect vessel, priceless content.
He worked on, copying each glyph stroke-for-stroke. Thunder rolled again outside, and rain hammered the roof, metronome to his concentration. Sweat pooled at the bend of his neck; once a droplet splashed onto the silk itself. He froze, heart stuttered, but the old fibres repelled moisture like oilskin. Resilient, as though the Canon refused to drink anything less than ink or blood.
Midway through the eighth line he paused, rubbed cramped fingers, then resumed. Press, lift, drag, flick. Hours seemed to condense around that rhythm. Candle wax spilled in slow glaciers; somewhere in distant corridors a bell stick tapped twice— Brother Cheol's incense-change signal. Jang calculated: the archivist would nod off soon, meaning the next patrol was fifteen minutes off. Time enough.
With the text captured, he set brush aside, spreading the damp copy to dry. His gaze fell back to the original's marginalia— four stylised figures sketched in red: a man rooted wide, knees bent; thumbs and index fingers touching to form an inverted blossom before the lower abdomen. Simple. A foundation posture.
He swallowed. Curiosity became gravity. He folded the fragment away— no more ink could risk spatter— then moved the sacks to carve a space. Grain rustled like low applause. Feet shoulder-width, toes gripping dusty plank; his left heel slipped until he found purchase. Knees bent. Hips settled. Already thighs quivered from yesterday's beatings, but he locked them.
Hands formed the inverted lotus at his dantian, thumbs meeting in a silent promise. He inhaled four counts— rain hiss, candle flick, heart drum, distant thunder— held four, exhaled seven, just as the red notes suggested. Again. Again.
At first it was merely cold air scraping bruised ribs. Second cycle, the candle-flame leaned blue and steadied. Third cycle, a faint copper warmth crawled up his spine like dawn creeping a mountain path. He nearly gasped but clamped jaw shut. Fourth cycle, warmth sharpened— not pain, not yet— a needle sliding between vertebrae to stitch flesh and will into single cloth.
Pulse thundered behind his knees. Sweat beaded at his temples. The storeroom fell away; only the breath counts and the rising ember remained. A thought surfaced unbidden: If ash can be ink, why not blood? The warmth surged— a tide cresting.
Metal flooded his mouth. Pressure burst behind his eyes. Candlelight fractured white; he tasted iron.
He opened his stance a hair too wide. The invisible thread snapped.