"Sounds familiar," said Remo.
"Oh, do not think that I have trained you hard. I have trained you rigorously, but compared to my dead son, Song, you have been loafing through the stages of Sinanju. In truth, I pushed too hard. I have never admitted this to anyone, but I killed my own son."
"You, Chiun? That's terrible."
"I did not kill with a stroke, or a blow, or a kick. I did not spill his blood with my own hands. I killed with pride. It was the first day of the spring, when the villagers were flying their kites to welcome the season. My son wished to join them. He was but eight. His ninth summer lay ahead of him, but it would be a summer as dark as night-although no one knew that on the day I tore his kite from his hands and marched him to Mount Paektusan.
"We stood at the bottom of Mount Paektusan. And I said to my son, 'If you are truly the son of my wife, you will climb Mount Paektusan in one day.' And my son say to me, 'O my father, I cannot. It is too high and my hands are too small.'
"And I said to him, 'The Master Go climbed Mount Paektusan when he was nine. Before him, no Master had climbed Mount Paektusan before his twelfth summer. I see greatness in you, and unless you wish to give the lie to my judgment, you will climb this peak before your ninth birthday. Begin now.' "
The Master of Sinanju smoothed the lap of his mourning kimono with thoughtful hands before going on. "Reluctantly my son began his climb. I sat in the melting spring snows to await him. I knew he would not make it on his first try, but I was determined that he would one day succeed, and if necessary, I would bring him to the base of Mount Paektusan every day until he succeeded or the summer rains made me a fool."
"He didn't make it," Remo said.
"On the first day," continued Chiun, "I watched him ascend until he was a spider speck against the snows of the high mountain and he disappeared into the upper mists. He had gone very high. I could tell, because at times falls of snow indicated that he was nearing the summit. I remember a moment on that day when I was very, very proud. But time passed, and my son did not descend from Mount Paektusan. I waited, determined that if he reached the summit on his own, he would descend on his own. I was stubborn. The sun set on my pride and it arose upon a stubborn young man-for I was young in those days-and when my son did not return, I scaled the peak to reach him, angry and intending to berate him for his lack of resolve.
"I found him near the summit," Chiun said softly, looking at his hands in his lap. "To this day, I do not know if he fell trying to reach the summit or while climbing down from it. The last of the snow had melted that morning, and there were no traces of his climb. My son lay on a wet outcropping, where he had fallen and dashed his head. He had been dead for many hours, but it had taken him many hours to die. Had I been less stubborn, I might have found him in time. I carried his body home to his mother, and from that day on she never had a civil word for me, nor would she allow me to enter her so that I would have another son and an opportunity for atonement. In time, age did make her barren, as I have told you in the past. But in truth, she did not trust me with another child."
"Why didn't you divorce her and remarry?"
"In Sinanju, one marries for life."
"Life sucks sometimes," said Remo.
"When you are Master you may write that in the scrolls of Sinanju, if that is your wish. But there are worthier thoughts. "
"I can't help how I feel."
"How do you feel?"
"How do you think I feel? I lost my bride-to-be, and the woman who mothered my daughter is afraid to have me around. All because of one man. "
"And so you will seek revenge, even though it costs you your life."
"What else do I have?"
"Me."
"What?"
Chiun searched Remo's face hopefully. "You have me. Have I meant nothing to you, that you would kill yourself and deprive an old man of his last chance for atonement?"
"I don't owe you anything. Especially after that trick you pulled at the wedding."
"I saved you from a horror. Had you married what you thought was Mah-Li, the Dutchman would have revealed himself to you at a moment of great intimacy. I spared you that."
"You didn't know it was the Dutchman at the ceremony. Don't you take credit for that. Don't you dare take credit for that."
Chiun smiled to himself. Anger. Good. Remo was coming out of his depressed self-absorption.
"I do not claim to have prior knowledge of the deception, true," Chiun admitted. "But the good I did still stands. You cannot disagree with that."
"You always twist things around so that they turn out in your favor," Remo said.
"True," agreed Chiun. "After I lost my son, I learned to transform defeat into victory, errors into detours, not endings. I promised myself that I would never feel such bitter disappointment again in my life."
"I always wondered why you did some of the things you did. "
"Because I am Chiun," said the Master of Sinanju. "But do not think that because I did not know of the Dutchman's deception, my motives were selfish."
"Here we go again," said Remo bitterly. "Here's where you do it to me again. Okay, Chiun, give me your explanation. Tell me how wrecking my wedding was for my own good. And make it good, because if you don't convince me, I'm walking out of this place and you're never going to see me again. You understand? End of partnership. We're through."
Chiun drew himself up so that his sitting posture was perfect, the spine aligned with the pelvis and the head sitting square to the upper vertebrae.
"Remember this time a year ago, when you brought me back to Sinanju?" Chiun asked.
"You were sick. Or faking sickness. You wanted to come back to Sinanju for good."
"Faking or not," said Chiun, "you thought I lay near death. And in your grief, you sought solace. Do you remember your first meeting with Mah-Li?"
"Yeah. She wore a veil to hide her face because the other villagers thought she was ugly. They called her Mah-Li the Beast. She was gorgeous, but by the screwed-up ideals of Sinanju beauty, she was homely."
"When did you first fall in love with her?"
"Almost immediately. It was love at first sight."
"Yet you did not see her face on that first meeting. How could you love at first sight when you had no sight of her veiled face?"
"I don't know. It was her voice, the way she made me feel good all over. She was lonely, an orphan like me."
"Precisely," said Chiun.
"Precisely what?" Remo asked.
"You were lonely. You thought the Master of Sinanju-the only person you cared for in life-was dying. You reached out to the nearest person you saw to fill the void in your existence. "
"You'd better not be saying that I didn't love her."
"I am not saying that. Love is learned. This love at first sight is a Western concept. A rationalization of a necessary but inconvenient urge. How long did you know Mah-Li?"
"A few weeks. I don't know."
"Less than a month," said Chiun. "And you knew her only a day when you came to me to ask my blessing for your marriage. Yet a month later when I stole away from Sinanju in the night, you left your love-at-first-sight and followed me to America. And when I told you I intended to remain in America for a full year, did you return to your betrothed? No, you chose to remain with me."
"I was worried about you. I thought of Mah-Li every day. "
"Did you send for her? Did you say, 'Mah-Li, come to America where we will be wed'?"
"No," said Remo slowly. "I wanted to be married in Sinanju. "
"So you say. But I say that had you met in other circumstances, had Mah-Li been a Korean living in America and you passed her on the street, you would not have given her a second look. You thought I was dying and you found a Korean maid who, in her sweetness and intelligence, was appealing to you. And so you took her for your betrothed to fill the coming void. When my health miraculously improved, that void was healed and there was no need for her in your life."