Discernment
On the road back to Chengdu, the heavy bundle of herbs thumped against Tang Mujin's hip with every step.
But Mujin paid it no mind. He was lost in thought—of course, about the vision he had experienced earlier in the day.
Was that really just a dream?
The closest word for it was dream. Yet could such a common, feeble word describe what he had gone through? At the same time, no other word fit.
The dream had been impossibly long—so long it felt less like a dream than an entire lifetime.
If its only peculiarity had been its length, he might have dismissed it as nothing more than a strange hallucination brought on by strange mushrooms. But there had been more to it than that.
Dreams, after all, are usually full of holes.
When inside them, everything feels plausible.
But upon waking, the story falls apart, full of contradictions and absurdities.
In dreams, you don't know why you're in a place, or how you came into a situation—it's all a string of disconnected scenes.
But today's dream had been different.
From the very beginning until the moment he woke, every instant had a reason.
The "me" inside the dream had a clear goal, and acted deliberately to achieve it.
The dwarves he met in that dream had their own reasons and desires too. They didn't feel like vague dream figures, but real, living people.
Of course, dwarves or whatever they were couldn't possibly exist in this world.
Yet aside from that impossibility, the story had fit together seamlessly.
If such a world did exist, what he experienced could very well have been real. And it was a life that felt entirely possible.
Mujin recalled the feelings once again, still vivid in his chest.
The joy he felt when he became an apprentice at the Ironmaul Forge.
The dismay of ruining precious metal by failing to control the fire.
The satisfaction of finally forging a proper sword.
Could all of this really be dismissed as just a dream?
Mujin looked down at his hands. Not the thick, calloused dwarven hands of his dream, but thin, long human fingers.
Was it really just a hallucination? I can't make sense of it.
He let out a long sigh and looked ahead.
By then, he had reached the outskirts of Chengdu. People bustled past, each headed to their own destination.
One man in particular caught his eye—a monk draped in robes and a kasaya.
According to monks, there's such a thing as reincarnation.
A man in this life might be reborn a beast in the next. Likewise, a man now might once have been a beast in his past life.
Could it be that he had been a dwarf in a past life?
If one never escaped the endless wheel of samsara, then perhaps such a life was not impossible.
Such idle thoughts made time pass quickly.
Before long, the sun had set, and Mujin arrived at the clinic.
As usual, he carried the bundle to the storeroom and began organizing the herbs—until he sensed a small commotion and paused.
The door of the treatment room opened, and two men emerged. One was his father, Tang Jeseon. The other appeared to be a patient.
The patient's voice was full of irritation.
"So this is supposed to be the best doctor in Chengdu? Nothing but empty rumors."
"My apologies."
"If I'd known it'd be like this, I wouldn't have come."
Jeseon bowed his head repeatedly, but the patient grumbled on for quite some time before finally storming out.
Neither father nor son was surprised.
It was nothing unusual for patients to be irritable with physicians. The sick were suffering, and pain made even ordinary people sensitive.
And when people became sensitive, even the smallest dissatisfaction sparked complaints. Naturally, the one most exposed to such complaints was the doctor treating them.
Mujin watched the patient's retreating back.
Judging by the man's attire, he was clearly an official, though Mujin couldn't guess how high-ranking. Only that he was certainly no lowly clerk.
When Mujin approached, Jeseon offered a sheepish smile.
He was used to such scenes, but it was not the sort of thing he wanted his son to see.
"You're back. Good work."
"Father, why was that patient so unreasonable? His rudeness was excessive."
"That was the Gentleman Attendant to the Cavalry Commandant. He came for acupuncture for shoulder pain, but it seems the needles hurt him more than expected."
"It hurt him? Then he must be quite the weakling."
Among the skills Jeseon had taught his son was acupuncture. And of course, Mujin himself had been subject to hundreds of his father's needles during practice.
From his experience, his father's acupuncture was superior to most physicians', not inferior.
The treatment was effective, and the pain minimal. Out of countless patients, only a rare few ever complained of pain.
Even small children endured the needles without tears—that alone spoke volumes.
But unexpectedly, Jeseon's expression grew thoughtful.
"No… I don't think it was just that."
"Pardon?"
"Not long ago, I lost my old needle case and had to get a new set. These needles are thicker than the last ones."
"Thicker?"
"Yes. Sometimes they even draw a bead of blood."
"May I see them?"
Jeseon pulled the case from his robes and handed it over. Inside were needles as long as a finger, some as long as a finger and a half, packed neatly together.
Mujin examined them closely. He hadn't studied needles in detail for some time, being preoccupied with medical texts lately.
Sure enough, compared to the ones his father had used before, these were at least twice as thick.
But that wasn't because the previous needles had been particularly excellent—it was simply that the new ones were thicker.
To judge fairly, even these needles Jeseon had just shown were still far finer and thinner than those used by quack doctors.
Ordinarily, Mujin would have scoffed and said, "He's a grown man, not a child. Complaining this much over a simple needle prick? Truly a weakling." And that would have been the end of it.
But this time was different. At the sight of these needles, an inexplicable irritation welled up inside him.
They dare call this crude thing a needle and sell it?
It felt as if he were watching a charlatan who couldn't even take a proper pulse, hawking weeds as miracle cures at exorbitant prices.
"Are you calling this a needle?"
"Of course. What else would it be?"
Mujin examined them again. The main flaw was the thickness. Naturally, something this thick would hurt when piercing skin.
But aside from that, other problems stood out—things he never would have noticed before.
The lengths were inconsistent—even among needles meant for the same purpose, some were long, others short.
The cross-sections weren't even round but squared. That, at least, he understood: crafting such fine, thin needles into perfectly round shapes must be extremely difficult. Even Jeseon's old set had been flat in shape.
"How long ago did you receive these needles?"
"The day you last went to fetch herbs—so, half a month ago."
Not even a month old, and already some were slightly bent. He was sure his father hadn't handled them roughly. Suspicious.
Looking closer, faint marks showed where the sides had been hammered after quenching and tempering.
To a physician, this might not mean much. But to a blacksmith, it was a grievous flaw. A true craftsman wanted his work to be perfect.
A blacksmith treats his creations like children. A poorly made piece shouldn't be patched up and sold off—it should be reforged from the start.
In other words, such needles should never have been in Jeseon's case at all.
An unskilled, lazy craftsman who only cuts corners would produce something like this.
At that moment, Jeseon reached out and took back the case.
"Don't worry about it. It only shows my skill is lacking. With diligence, I'll improve."
"But—"
"I said enough."
He cleared his throat a couple of times, then disappeared back inside the clinic.
Mujin soon returned to his own room. Only then did the strangeness dawn on him. He had never forged a single thing in his life—not even held a hammer.
So how did I recognize that the needles were poorly made?
Until recently, a needle to him was nothing more than a thin piece of metal.
Whether slightly bent, flat in cross-section, made from impure iron, or hammered after tempering—none of this had ever been his concern.
No—it wasn't simply that it hadn't been his concern. He had never even had the means to notice such things. He was a physician, not a smith. He knew nothing of metallurgy, nothing of the processes by which a needle was forged. To him, a good needle was simply one that was thin.
But today was different. Not only could he clearly see the flaws, but the very sight of them filled him with a stifling frustration, almost unbearable.
As though I truly had lived as that dwarf blacksmith in the dream.
But that was impossible. The dream had lasted scarcely two hours. Far too short a time to learn anything real.
It must all be an illusion. Yes—surely just a trick of the mind. His suspicions made the needles seem faulty, that was all. That had to be it.
And yet, deep inside, doubt stirred.
The flaws he noticed were too concrete, too precise. So much so that he could even guess at the skill—or lack thereof—of the blacksmith who made them.
That night, Mujin lay down, trying to sleep. But he could not shake thoughts of the dream, the forge, the needles.
He forced himself to clear his mind.
There's no point in fretting now. Tomorrow, I'll go to the forge and see for myself.
If he watched a blacksmith at work, he would know the truth.
What he saw there would surely be nothing like the dream. There were no dwarf smiths—of that, he was almost certain. It had all been a hallucination caused by those strange mushrooms.
Once he confirmed it was all nonsense, these distracting thoughts would fade. Certainty was the surest way to banish doubt.
Closing his eyes, Mujin muttered once more, Yes. Tomorrow, I'll go to the forge.