Training the Compendium _2
(Emphasizing the Desperation of the Baekryongdae)
By evening, Yi Hui ordered four bonfires prepared.
They were lit at the four corners of the courtyard.
Flames rose and cast restless red light against the walls of the western annex.
He seated himself before the innermost fire.
He did not lean back.
He did not move.
He sat like a stone that judged men.
Over one hundred and twenty soldiers of the Baekryongdae stood before him.
Most had skipped supper.
Their lips moved ceaselessly, whispering passages from the secret manual.
Their bodies trembled.
The overlapping murmurs rolled across the courtyard like a low fever.
To an outsider, it would have looked like a secret cult ceremony.
Men with hollow eyes chanting forbidden scripture.
Some shut their eyes tightly, clinging to words that threatened to slip away.
Others stared into the fire as if memorizing flames instead of ink.
"Those who have memorized it—raise your hands!"
The murmuring stopped at once.
Half a day had been given.
Barely twenty or thirty hands went up.
Even then, the hands rose reluctantly, as though volunteering for execution.
"Those who've memorized it—front of Fire One."
The innermost bonfire.
Twenty-odd men shuffled forward.
Their legs already shook.
Their lips continued moving, repeating the last lines over and over as if trying to hammer them into bone.
Some tilted their heads slightly, searching their minds for missing phrases.
"The rest—take out the manuals."
The remaining men fumbled for their pages.
Sweat had dampened the edges.
Some sheets were wrinkled and smudged from frantic handling.
"Horse stance."
Nearly a hundred men widened their stances at once.
They had done this countless times before.
Tonight, it felt different.
"Arms forward. Straight."
Arms rose horizontally.
Within moments, shoulders burned.
Thighs began screaming first.
No one dared voice it.
"Hold that stance. Open your manuals."
Still in horse stance, arms extended, they unfolded their pages.
Paper trembled between firelight and moonlight.
"Loudly. Recite."
"Begin!"
The courtyard exploded into sound.
Over a hundred men shouted in rough unison.
Words ceased to be meaning and became raw noise.
Some choked on breath.
Some swallowed syllables.
Thighs shook violently.
Arms sagged inch by inch.
"Lower!"
Yi Hui's voice cracked like a whip.
"If I see anyone growing taller, I'll take your head off!"
The threat was crude.
It worked.
Every stance dropped lower.
Teeth ground together.
Someone tasted blood where he had bitten his lip.
Yet the recitation did not stop.
It was not merely punishment.
They knew it.
If they failed here,
they would fail on the battlefield.
Out there, hesitation meant death.
A forgotten line here might mean a forgotten movement there.
A forgotten movement meant a blade through the ribs.
They had eaten nothing.
They had marched for days.
They were fugitives hiding under borrowed protection.
This manual was not scholarship.
It was survival.
Yi Hui began testing the group before Fire One.
"You. Come here."
The chosen soldier stiffened.
His face drained of color.
He knew exactly what would follow.
"Recite."
The man began.
His voice wavered.
He missed a character.
Yi Hui's brow twitched.
The soldier's throat locked.
"Again. From the beginning."
Watching men swallowed hard.
Failure meant returning to the stance.
Returning to the fire.
Returning to shaking thighs and humiliation.
Those who passed did not leave.
They lingered.
They walked past the men still holding stance and whispered:
"Can't even memorize that?"
"That's why you're still a grunt."
They smirked.
A stone cut the air.
Crack.
One man yelped as it struck his forehead.
He dropped instinctively, lowering his stance at once.
He clutched his head—but did not let go of the manual.
It was ridiculous.
It was pitiful.
It was deadly serious.
More hands began to rise.
But now it became war.
Some raised hands without truly memorizing.
They only wanted a moment's reprieve from the horse stance.
They hoped to bluff.
They were dragged back when exposed.
Some argued that their version was correct.
Some insisted they had merely reversed two phrases.
Some tried to recite faster than thought itself, hoping speed would hide ignorance.
It was chaotic.
It was absurd.
It was desperate.
The once quiet mountain estate now roared with noise.
Under pale moonlight, men stood in horse stance like condemned prisoners, shouting ancient lines into smoke and flame.
They were not fighting an enemy tonight.
They were fighting letters.
Fighting memory.
Fighting weakness.
And fighting the fear that if they did not change—
if they did not grow stronger—
they would die before winter.
When the last of the successful ones stumbled into the dining hall, the sight was almost comical.
One man tripped over the threshold because his legs had gone numb.
Another's forehead had swollen from a stone strike.
Several limped like wounded veterans of a battle fought entirely in place.
Some could barely lift their spoons.
Yet even then, their lips moved.
Still reciting.
The Baekryongdae had not faced foreign enemies that night.
They had faced something worse.
Their own limits.
And none of them could afford to lose.