344.
At the Edge of Impatience**
As several battles followed one after another, impatience began to creep into Park Seong-jin's heart.
The fighting had not ended, and the sense that if you do not grow stronger, you die drilled into his mind at every moment.
I have to become a master—quickly.
Until he fell asleep, he counted his breaths.
At dawn, he forced his true qi upward.
His breathing grew rough, his mind increasingly light.
Each time the qi circulated, his head swam.
He stood at the threshold of deviation.
Then Song Yi-sul's voice echoed in his ears.
"Impatience is more dangerous than a blade."
Park Seong-jin stopped.
The pounding of his heart rang inside his ears.
When he closed his eyes for a moment, he finally heard it—
laughter in the distance, the sound of hammering, the smell of rice cooking.
The living sounds of the battlefield.
Only then did he realize it.
When he let go of his impatience, people finally came into view.
That day, Park Seong-jin made the rounds of the camp with unusual care.
Normally, he passed through quickly, checking only for accidents, weapons, and the flow of supplies in a technical way.
This time, he slowed his steps.
He looked into the daily lives of his comrades.
He had thought he already knew them.
Yet their joys and sorrows were deeply soaked in.
He admitted to himself that it was precisely because he knew too well that he had chosen to look away.
In front of the armory, two soldiers were sharpening a rusted spearhead.
"Gotta grind this again. We did it yesterday too."
"Can't let the tip go dull."
"They ought to give us better steel."
"Funny how you never say your hands are dull."
The two laughed together.
Laughter was a supply stronger than any weapon.
Farther off, a soldier was feeding a horse.
He offered it warm porridge instead of grass.
Park Seong-jin murmured,
"Treating it like a person, even on a battlefield."
The soldier looked up.
"It's not in good condition."
Park Seong-jin chuckled.
"A person? You call it 'he'?"
The soldier answered seriously.
"Better than most people. It doesn't change.
That kind of unchanging loyalty is something we should learn."
Truth was mixed into the soldiers' words.
Park Seong-jin nodded.
"I see. Treat it like a person, and it'll run longer."
The words lingered strangely in his chest.
With them came another thought:
treat horses like people, and never treat people like horses.
On one side, the wounded had gathered.
With broken arms, they braided tree bark, tying knots to replace bowstrings.
"This could work for reins too, right?"
"If not, it'll snap."
"If it snaps, we braid it again."
Hearing that, Park Seong-jin laughed softly.
In those simple words lay the root of the study he had been seeking.
If it breaks, you braid it again.
It was a lesson of the heart.
At dusk, soldiers lit a fire in the middle of the camp.
Someone sang a northern song; others kept rhythm.
The pitch was off, the melody rough, but the laughter carried the energy of the living.
Park Seong-jin sat quietly among them.
Someone held out a bowl.
"General, have a spoonful. There's plenty of rice in it today."
Smiling, Park Seong-jin took a spoonful.
The warm porridge slid down his throat.
In that instant, the long-held tension in his body loosened.
The obsession with having to be strong retreated,
and the sense of we must live settled in its place.
From afar, Song Yi-sul watched him.
In his gaze were wordless relief and a faint smile.
That's enough, it said.
Park Seong-jin looked up at the sky.
It was a battlefield night, yet the starlight was clear.
Under that light, he murmured softly,
"Study isn't something you do alone."
Only then did he truly understand.
It was not his martial skill, but the breathing of those enduring this battlefield together that was completing his study.
Qi circulated again.
This time it was not rough.
It flowed gently, like ripples of water, wearing down the sharp edges within his body one by one.
He closed his eyes.
Warmth bloomed at the center of his chest.
"Let's go slowly. That's how we last."
When the sensation of touching the upper dantian arose, he did not grasp at it in haste.
He calmed the surprise and watched the flow.
Impatience turned into stillness.
Stillness shifted into a texture of contemplation.
Within that contemplation, the night of the battlefield became a little less frightening.