347.
Before Dawn**
Before the darkness had fully lifted, Park Seong-jin sat quietly inside the tent.
His slowed breathing flowed in and out like gentle waves.
Song Yi-sul's voice had faded, yet its resonance lingered in his chest like an afterecho.
He recalled the verses again.
If the mind is like an empty valley, qi naturally becomes a river.
He let his mind become a hollow valley.
Its interior cooled and emptied.
Desire, fear, victory and defeat, life and death—all settled into stillness.
Breath flowed into the empty space.
Like a river finding its course, it connected on its own.
Do not leave one thought. Do not dwell in one thought.
Thoughts of war, death, and contest arose.
He neither pushed them away nor clung to them.
Left like drifting smoke, they vanished on their own.
As they disappeared, his breathing evened once more.
Within movement, guard stillness. Within stillness, contain movement.
Very slowly, he moved his shoulders.
Even within motion, his mind remained calm.
When he stilled himself, a subtle tremor rippled inside.
Movement dwelling within stillness.
This is the road to the heavens.
Inside his body, his spine straightened naturally and his chest opened.
The path was not far.
It already existed within this very flow of breath.
He murmured inwardly,
The path was never outside. It was already within me.
The verse "If the mind is like an empty valley, qi naturally becomes a river" opened the gate of his heart.
"Do not leave one thought, do not dwell in one thought" quieted desire.
"Within movement, guard stillness; within stillness, contain movement" bound body and mind into one.
All that remained was to walk this path.
Park Seong-jin opened his eyes.
The first light of dawn seeped into the tent.
It wavered softly on the back of his hand—
and even that wavering was calm.
He was standing on his own road.
At daybreak, mist wrapped the encampment.
Song Yi-sul held a handful of fallen leaves in his palm.
"Stand still," he said.
"Don't try to avoid them, and don't try to face them."
He tossed the leaves into the air.
They scattered on the wind, raining toward Park Seong-jin's shoulders and face.
At that instant, Park Seong-jin's body moved—
only slightly, almost imperceptibly.
A gap opened first among the falling leaves.
There was no intent to dodge, no force to block.
Qi cleared the way first, and the body followed the path it made.
Not a single leaf touched him.
Startled, Park Seong-jin turned.
"Did I… dodge them?"
Song Yi-sul shook his head.
"You didn't dodge. Your qi opened the path first."
The meaning reached the body before the mind.
To dodge is a reaction to an opponent.
To open a path is for order within oneself to stand first.
They were in a wide space used as a training ground.
When Park Seong-jin stepped forward, the dust beneath his feet did not scatter ahead of him.
Instead, it curled faintly upward behind him.
It wasn't the sensation of feet moving first and qi following.
Qi set the direction first, and the feet followed its flow.
"Huh… what was that?"
The soldiers training nearby murmured in confusion.
Park Seong-jin felt something move beneath his soles before he did.
The sensation of walking had changed.
It was closer to walking on water—
not strides forced by strength, but steps carried by the flow.
Song Yi-sul said quietly,
"Your body has begun to listen to your qi."
Toward evening, Park Seong-jin placed a small stone on his palm.
Slowly, he turned his hand over.
The stone did not fall.
He wasn't gripping it, nor supporting it with technique.
A very thin layer of qi wrapped gently around the stone.
He inhaled.
At that moment, the stone rolled onto the back of his hand.
It hovered on the verge of falling, yet qi softly held it in place.
Song Yi-sul spoke in a low voice.
"Just as water moves according to the shape of its vessel,
when qi follows you, a weapon becomes like part of the body."
This wasn't a display of inner power.
It was the foundation of tactics—the sense of controlling momentum.
The one who knows how to release first, not grasp first, holds the advantage.
Night fell.
In front of the tent, Park Seong-jin sat in quiet meditation.
A single candle was lit.
The wind blew.
Soldiers ran about.
Amid the commotion, the flame wavered for a moment—then straightened again.
What did not waver was not the flame,
but the air it rested upon.
And Park Seong-jin vaguely sensed that the center of that air was his own breathing.
If my breath and movement are balanced, even an enemy's momentum cannot shake me.
This was not a miracle.
It was a principle.
One who stands at the center topples those who sway.
Song Yi-sul spoke softly.
"On the battlefield, there will now be things you see before others do."
At that moment, Park Seong-jin understood.
The candle's calmness was not because it was strong—
but because it did not struggle not to be shaken.
When it stopped struggling, the center settled.
When the center settled, even the wind changed its path.
Park Seong-jin slowly opened his eyes.
The candle remained calm.
The wind still blew, its flow felt like an open palm.
The wind was not shaking his body.
His body was reading the wind first.
And quietly, he became certain:
Inner power shapes the body.
The body shapes perception.
Perception shapes the way one fights.
He was no longer a soldier merely learning how to fight.
He had begun to read the battlefield.