Those Who Return
After the chaos of defeat and retreat, Chen Youliang began gathering his scattered forces day and night.
Those who had fled returned with lowered heads.
There were fewer horses now, their hoofbeats thin and uneven.
Rations were scarce—gruel so diluted it was almost water.
The camp air was heavy with the damp stench of rout.
And yet, they came back.
Chen Youliang accepted them in silence.
He stood before the camp gates, his face set hard.
When soldiers who had once deserted approached with bowed heads, he merely raised a hand and ordered them to take their places.
There was no punishment.
No rebuke.
Only cold discipline.
But inside him, something burned like wildfire.
Why are these the only ones who return to me?
He asked himself the question again and again.
Under Zhu Yuanzhang, men like these would never have been accepted.
So why—
why do only such men gather under my banner?
The question pierced his chest like a blade.
They do not follow me because they trust me.
They return because, in this moment, I am still useful to them.
Chen Youliang laughed bitterly.
"So it's temporary…"
"Is there truly no one who will follow me to the end?"
But he did not let the emotion show.
Before anxious generals, he showed no sign of wavering.
Instead, his attention slowly shifted toward the Goryeo forces—
men of few words, whose actions always preceded their speech.
He began to observe them carefully.
The Goryeo soldiers moved without noise.
When supplies ran low, they procured them on their own.
When the wounded appeared, no orders were needed—several men would already be carrying them away.
After battle, they maintained their crossbows and trained in silence.
They did not speak of honor.
They did not demand reward.
They gave everything—and expected nothing.
For the first time, Chen Youliang began to understand the meaning carried within their silence.
They do not fight for what they will gain.
They fight for what must be done.
And so he asked Park Seong-jin.
"Jungnangjang Park Seong-jin,"
"why do you fight as if your life means nothing?"
Park answered with the same awkward expression he had worn when they first met.
"For world peace."
Chen Youliang stiffened.
Surprise—and confusion—flickered across his face.
Only now did he realize that the words spoken at their first meeting had not been a slogan.
"World… peace?"
Park brushed his hands, embarrassed.
"It sounds grand, I know.
But it's the truth."
Before, Chen Youliang would have mocked such a naïve dream.
Now, he could not.
Park continued calmly.
"If Your Majesty's state stands firm on this land,
that itself contributes to world peace."
Chen Youliang's gaze wavered.
"…Why not Zhu Yuanzhang, then?"
"After unifying Jiangnan and Jiangbei, he will seek to swallow the Western Regions, Liaodong—
even Goryeo."
"He is a man of endless desire," Park said plainly.
"A man who invites war."
Chen Youliang exhaled slowly.
"Hm…"
Park went on.
"Your Majesty knows when to stop."
Chen Youliang asked at once.
"And Zhu Yuanzhang?"
"He does not.
He wants to live long—and possess everything."
The words were rough, but their meaning was unmistakable.
Only then did Chen Youliang feel how Park's words aligned with Yin Dam's strategy of the Threefold Balance.
Curiosity stirred, and Chen Youliang asked one more question.
"Then… what of Zhang Shicheng?"
Park paused, then answered carefully.
"He is a righteous man."
Chen Youliang nodded.
"I agree.
People call him a merchant-lord, but that name never sat right with me."
A brief silence followed.
Then Park added quietly,
"But the people around him are not."
The words struck Chen Youliang's chest again.
Why did men of iron loyalty and fierce resolve gather under Zhu Yuanzhang—
while only deserters and self-serving men stood beside me?
Why is there no one willing to stake their life with mine?
At that moment, he understood.
From now on,
I must treat these Goryeo warriors well.
That realization marked the first step toward his second attempt to stand again.
After a long flight, Chen Youliang's army finally found room to breathe.
The retreat was long and exhausting, but no further ambushes came.
Zhu Yuanzhang's forces, after suffering several sudden strikes, no longer pressed forward recklessly.
It was a defeat—
yet the withdrawal itself was strangely stable.
Because a young warrior in gray guarded the rear and flanks like a shadow.
As Chen Youliang's army withdrew westward, the cities of Jiangnan changed banners one by one.
Granaries reopened.
Zhu Yuanzhang's newly trusted generals took control of administration and order.
Public sentiment shifted swiftly.
War-weary commoners began to believe:
If it is Zhu Yuanzhang, perhaps he will protect us.
When the retreat stabilized, Chen Youliang's forces established camp on a wide riverside plain.
In this brief calm, Park Seong-jin sat alone and examined his recent awakenings.
The echoes of battlefield energy still churned within him.
At times, a simmering heat rose from below—
from the lower dantian, through the middle, lightly brushing the nape and the space between his eyes.
…It's rising.
He had not arrived, but the sensation clearly brushed the upper dantian.
A sign of Hwagyeong—the transformative realm.
The gate had not opened fully,
but his toes had reached its threshold.
His vision widened.
Fragments of the future resurfaced like memories.
Even while seated, he felt as if he were observing himself from a step behind—
a quiet transcendence settling in.
But Park cut it off himself.
Not yet.
If I sink into this now, it will become internal deviation.
Song Yisul's warning echoed softly in his mind.
In the days that followed, Park used the absence of battle as a chance for cultivation.
By day, he walked the camps, reading the movements and rhythms of the soldiers.
At dawn, he strode across the fields, drawing in the land's breath.
At night, he sat in silence, watching the flow of qi within himself, strand by strand.
Then he realized it.
My martial art is no longer a state where I move my body.
My body already follows the qi.
Song Yisul's words returned to him.
"Internal energy shapes the body.
The body shapes perception.
Perception shapes tactics."
Now, that first stage had fully opened.
Park quietly embraced the killing intent of the battlefield within his inner energy.
Only now did he understand—
that moment when he had read thousands of enemies' momentum and turned it back upon them had not been a mere technique.
It had been an expansion of perception.
Not martial skill—
but the power to read both the world and oneself.
He looked up at the night sky and murmured softly,
"Another step forward."
There was a depth in his eyes that had never been there before.
Hwagyeong Threshold)
A subtle heat stirred within him.
It did not surge—
it settled.
The warmth rose from deep below,
passing the center of his chest,
brushing the back of his neck,
lingering faintly between his eyes.
It's there, he realized.
Not open—yet not distant.
It felt like standing before a door
he had always known existed,
one that did not demand to be opened,
only recognized.
His vision widened—not outward,
but inward.
The battlefield returned to him as memory rather than sensation.
Movements he had already made replayed themselves,
not as actions,
but as understanding.
He felt as though he were watching himself
from a single step behind—
close enough to inhabit his body,
far enough to see its shape.
This was not power overflowing.
It was power finding its place.
For a brief moment,
he sensed the threshold of Hwagyeong—
not as a leap forward,
but as a stillness
where nothing needed to be forced.
Park Seong-jin exhaled slowly
and let the sensation go.
Not yet.
To linger here would be indulgence.
To cross now would be deviation.
He chose to remain where he was—
standing at the edge,
knowing the ground beneath his feet
had already changed.