Chapter 7: The Origin of “Jawoon”

A mere human dared to give a name to the Blue Dragon, one of the Four Gods. Anyone who saw it would have been shocked, but the Blue Dragon didn’t find it unpleasant. In fact, he felt a flutter of excitement.

When the Blue Dragon nodded, Neungso picked up a twig and quickly wrote two characters on the dirt. Below the two skillfully written characters, he wrote his own name, then began to ponder. He fretted for a long time, then wrote an additional character to the side, and fretted again.

The sight was so amusing that Jawoon sat down beside him and kept watching. Neungso frowned, pouted, and touched his earlobe.

The sun that had been high in the sky began to tilt. Sunlight passed through the great trees and cast long shadows. Before long, Neungso was standing in that shade. Even after a considerable time, the Blue Dragon watched him in silence. As the sun moved, the light touched him from different angles each moment, and the Blue Dragon delighted in every one of those moments. Though his expression was the same, under one beam he seemed joyful, under another he seemed sullen, under another he looked aloof, under another he looked brave. Merely a difference in where the light fell gave rise to countless faces, countless expressions that appeared, vanished, and appeared again. The Blue Dragon found every moment delightful.

Only when the sunlight passing over the bridge of Neungso’s nose stretched a long shadow across his cheek did he finally complete the two characters of a name.

“The trumpet flower is red, isn’t it?” he said, pointing toward the cliff. The scarlet blossoms covering the Thousand-Li Cliff rippled like waves with each gust of wind, then fell like rain.

“And you are blue.”

With the twig in his hand, he circled a character in front of the Blue Dragon.

“Do you know what color red and blue make when they meet?”

“I wonder.”

Neungso then wrote a new character below the names of the Blue Dragon and himself. Unlike his earlier hasty scrawls, each stroke was careful and deliberate.

“It becomes purple.”

It was a color that bound him and the Blue Dragon together. Neungso continued writing without hesitation.

“And since you are like the sky, if I add a character here…”

The Blue Dragon slowly read the two characters he had written.

“Jawoon.”

Neungso watched his reaction, touching his earlobe. He wished he would say plainly whether he liked it or not, but the Blue Dragon simply stared at the two characters for a long time. Finally, unable to bear it, Neungso spoke first.

“I hope it pleases you, Blue Dragon.”

At that moment, the Blue Dragon stretched out his hand. With his gesture, golden energy rose from the characters on the dirt and lifted into the air. The golden light, warm as spring sunshine, formed into the two characters “Jawoon” and lingered in the air as if displaying itself. Neungso watched blankly. The Blue Dragon waved his hand lightly, and the two characters drifted slowly toward his chest, sinking into it and vanishing. With his eyes closed, Jawoon smiled as if savoring the two characters etched into his heart. After a moment, he opened his eyes and spoke.

“Neungso.”

“Yes, Blue Dragon.”

Jawoon tilted his head slightly. Seeing that, Neungso hesitated for a moment, then carefully added, “…Jawoon.”

“I like it.”

“If it pleases you, please treasure it, Jawoon.”

In response to that call, the name-inscribed heart beat. In that instant, Jawoon knew that the two characters etched into his heart would become his name forever.

“Call me again.”

“Jawoon.”

“It truly sounds lovely.”

Neungso smiled radiantly.

“Then I will call you every day, every moment.”

“Blue Dragon.”

At the voice calling him, Jawoon forced his heavy eyelids open. A warm presence was beside him. But it was not simply warmth. Frowning, Jawoon sighed and called out to the person beside him.

“Vermilion Bird.”

There sat someone with deep red hair pinned high. Each time she blinked, her long, ornate eyelashes fluttered like ornamental feathers on a bird.

“Geuma said you collapsed suddenly, so he called me,” she said, clicking her tongue. She lightly tapped Jawoon’s forehead with a fingernail adorned in gold.

“You foolish thing. Every time you return from the Heavenly Palace, your energy is in disarray, and then you use your power the moment you come down to the mortal realm?”

When Jawoon tried to rise, Vermilion Bird made a gesture. Her characteristic warm energy wrapped gently around his body and pressed him back down.

“Your Dragon Orb is completely empty. What happened?”

When Jawoon responded with only an awkward smile instead of an answer, Vermilion Bird clicked her tongue in disapproval. She didn’t push further, as if she knew better than to ask.

“Please stay quiet for a while.”

Fortunately, it seemed Geuma hadn’t told Vermilion Bird where the power of the Dragon Orb had gone.

“I’ve caused you trouble again.”

“If you know, then restrain yourself.”

Jawoon knew what she meant, but he didn’t reply.

“I sense the energy of Hyeonmu.”

“Yes. He healed a wound on my hand.”

He lifted the hand he had slashed long ago when he sought to reclaim his name. The wound still bore a trace of red, and Vermilion Bird felt the lingering black energy within it—like an aftertaste. Though it was black energy, it was not evil. How could the energy of Hyeonmu, one of the Four Gods, be evil? But for Jawoon, who even now couldn’t properly contain his own energy, the strong energy of another divine beast was like poison.

“I’ll draw out the energy. It will hurt.”

She moved her hand again. The remaining traces of Hyeonmu’s energy within his body shifted along her fingertips and slowly seeped into her palm. As the black energy vanished completely into her hand, Jawoon’s wound reopened. Expecting this, Vermilion Bird wrapped it with a cloth she had nearby.

“Does Hyeonmu not know your condition? He tries to heal someone who can’t even manage his own energy? Doesn’t he realize it’s poison? After all these millennia, he only knows how to trail after the Heavenly Emperor…”

Vermilion Bird frowned in displeasure.

“It’s nothing serious.”

“Nothing serious? If it weren’t serious, that little Geuma wouldn’t have turned pale and come all the way to the South Sea to find me.”

Jawoon had no retort and fell silent. She clicked her tongue again.

“If you’re going to give up your seat as Blue Dragon and hand over the eastern sky and land to me, you’d better rest properly. Instead, you keep causing accidents that make me come and go. Do you think you’re some white cat?”

At the mention of a white cat, the corner of Jawoon’s mouth lifted slightly. He knew she wasn’t referring to an actual cat. Vermilion Bird always treated the White Tiger of the West like a child.

“Don’t laugh. What have you done to laugh about?”

She crossed her legs and grumbled.

“So, did you enjoy seeing it after so long?”

She didn’t say what she meant, but Jawoon understood.

“Yes. I enjoyed it.”

A being who seemed to have no emotions had, in his tens of thousands of years of life, finally kept something in his heart. But fate was cruel, and the one he kept in his heart was a human living a mortal life. The Blue Dragon had done much to keep the human by his side, but he could not defy fate. Rather, the karma of what he had done had fallen upon the human, and in the end, he became a spirit jade. Vermilion Bird knew how much Jawoon had given up, and was still giving up, just to see that jade once more. He could not speak to it, hold it, or touch it. Yet he said that merely seeing it brought him joy, and it turned her stomach.

“You fool.”

She jiggled her foot in irritation, causing the ornaments on her ankle to clink together.

“Blue Dragon. I heard the Heavenly Emperor asked you to give up your name.”

“How did you know that?”

“The cat told me. And he probably heard it from that turtle.”

Jawoon glanced toward the door. He didn’t sense Geuma’s presence.

“Please don’t tell Geuma.”

Vermilion Bird clicked her tongue again. Geuma was the only one under heaven who called the Blue Dragon by that name. And Geuma did so only because his master was pleased to be called by it. Everyone else addressed him as Blue Dragon or master of Cheonryeongji, never by his name. So naturally, the name held no meaning and was not recognized anywhere in heaven or the world. Yet, for the sole reason that a human had given it to him, he had kept that name while giving up everything.

“What does such a trivial name matter…” Vermilion Bird said.

There had been a time, a very brief one, when she too had called him “Jawoon.” But after he stepped down from the position of Blue Dragon and the one who had given him the name had vanished, she deliberately called him Blue Dragon again. It was her way of telling him to forget the human soul and return to his position. But he stubbornly kept his name. His foolishness made her feel stifled, pathetic, and at the same time curious. What exactly was love, that it could move the Blue Dragon so deeply?