Alchemy of Souls - Part 4

Jung Uk’s head hurts, but his heart aches more.  His mind filled only with Mu-deok, he’s determined to find a way to go to her.  He’s sure she isn’t functioning well without him. Jang Uk is perhaps speaking of himself.  The withdrawal symptoms they are both experiencing are clearly due to more than just the habit of being together.

He’s got this.  It won’t take long.  What was expected to take months takes him days. Luckily for Jang Uk, all those years of reading the theories of magic and martial arts enables him to complete his academic studies in record time. Mu-deok, he’s coming!  ‘Not so fast’ was never such a downer for a man in love who wants to be with the one that occupies all his thoughts.  Alchemy of Souls [1] really plays with our heart rates.   

He aced the first part of his training so quickly his leader decides he must have cheated.  How and why acquiring the knowledge forced upon him for years should be considered cheating is neither fair nor reasonable. Maybe it’s because ‘lazy’ Jang Uk wasn’t so idle, after all. Whatever! Now he must translate the words in a book.  Easy peasy.  Except the pages are blank.  The task is to find how to make the words appear.  By leader Park Jin’s reckoning, it should take Jang Uk at least a year to work things out.  He has perhaps forgotten that his pupil achieved a level of magic in a timeframe impossible for everyone else, including himself, Songrim Leader Park Jin.  He, perhaps, does not know that this pupil is blessed with the interest and support of veteran mage Master Lee.  It is, therefore, not by chance that young Jang Uk is visited by an apparating Master Lee who was present when the literary work was created, knows the background to it, and also how to solve the mystery.  To be fair, he does not directly tell Jang UK how to unlock the blank pages.  There’s no fun in the process unless he works that out himself. 

Before that, however, unable to spend another day without seeing Mu-deok, Jang Uk escapes his open prison and heads home.  Unfortunately, Mu-deok is out and no one knows when she will be back.  He waits as long as possible and is sorely disappointed at her absence. They miss one another by fewer than minutes. If only they had mobile phones, eh?  Upon learning of the missed visit, and equally desperate to meet Jang Uk, Mu-deok races to the river, where she knows he must travel by boat back to the training school.  They share a few moments ‘together’.  Him on a slow-moving boat; her running across bridges to keep him in sight. The love note she sends Jang Uk is a job advertisement wrapped around a stone.   She will come to him soon, she shouts.  His smile is big enough to warm both their hearts.  The look of love in her eyes fills them both with happiness.  That will do for now.  Trying to sidle back into the training school without being observed, Jang Uk unfortunately bumps into the crown prince.  It appears his frenemy is going to tell on him.  After a few minutes of verbal combat, which turns out to be from habit, Go Won advises Jang Uk where to pass to avoid detection.  The first sign of a new friendship developing is in evidence.  The honey biscuits Go Won gets from Jang Uk are treated like gold.

Leader and substitute father is incredulous at the speed that Jang Uk completes the book task. He expresses his disappointment to medic Heo Yeom, explaining that there was never an intention to train Jang Uk.  He has, instead, created a different type of hindrance where the young man’s chances of magical advancement will be restricted.  Heo Yeom is not impressed, nor is he in agreement, but can do nothing about it. 

As hard as Jang Uk is working to complete the literary task, Mu-deok is expending equal effort so her promise to join him at Jeongjingak can happen.  She even lowers her pride to participate in a competitive recruitment drive for servants to be stationed at the training school.  Only, there are 125 applicants.  She’s number 125.  It seems impossible.  An optimist, like her young master, she accepts the odds, sets out to win.  By chance or design, her three biggest supporters after Jang Uk -- Go Won, Seo Yul, and Park Dang-gu -- come across the list of applicants.  (It’s the kind of ‘chance’ that happens when you specifically look for something.)  Spotting Mu-deok’s name, the three of them unite to solve the question sheet the applicants must ace to have a chance at the job.  They decide Mu-deok will likely fail if it is left to her own ability. It’s not that they are insulting her -- they actually are -- it is, rather, that they want to ensure she passes.

Watching three members of the most respected, wealthy, prominent, and noble families in the country collude to help Mu-deok, the maid, cheat her way through the recruitment process is a hoot.  The trio work hard to complete the exam paper, even calling upon the crown prince’s servant for help with the domestic task-related questions. They do well.  Are proud of their respective contributions. How, now, to get the test answers to its target.  Let’s blind them with the majesty of the crown prince is the unanimous decision.  With all that kowtowing with averted eyes by his subjects going on, Go Won surreptitiously drops the tightly folded document in front of Mu-deok.  She immediately understands.  No-one else notices.  She is, anyway, the only person bold enough to make eye contact with His Royal Highness.  After all, they are well acquainted; even, one could say, friends.

Mu-deok must rely on her own abilities for the other tasks.  She does well until the final challenge.  She must carry a large container across a prescribed distance and back again, this time with the vessel filled with water.  Where Nak-su would have completed the task without breaking a sweat, Mu-deok struggles.  At one point, only the memory of her treatment of Jang Uk in a similar situation keeps her motivated.  The viewers later see that her fan club as well as Jang Uk are there to watch the last moments of her effort to complete what is now a race between her and the man ahead of her.  They are competing for the last available qualifying spot. She only has eyes for Jang Uk, as Go Won notes with disappointment.  The silent message the lovers exchange is enough to propel Mu-deok across the finishing line in fifth place.  It’s enough.  She is now a maid at the training school.  That useless, weak body belonging to Mu-deok frustrates Nak-su no end.  This time she passes out as soon as she is declared the final winner.   Off to hospital again, one that should be out of her range but for Jang Uk.  Only the best treatment for his maid, Mu-deok.  Again, Jang Uk is right beside her, refusing to leave until she regains consciousness, then until she recovers physically.  All are so familiar with this routine that no one bats an eyelid.  First, it is, after all, Jang Uk, who does as he pleases.  Then, it’s Mu-deok, the only person he worships.  Jang Uk shows anyone who cares to analyse the relationship that he cannot live without Mu-deok.

Time for the truth

Jang Uk decides that it’s time to face their feelings.  Mu-deok disclosed her heart first with the ‘letter’ she sent to him from the bridge.  What makes it a letter, he explains, countering her argument against this description, is not its form but its message. She told him she misses him so much she will go to any length to be with him.  His reply?  He missed her equally.  Mu-deok challenges his interpretation.  It’s just paper, she says, placing it on the brazier, which will burn into nothingness. When it’s gone, she insists, there will not even be a memory.   

Jang Uk: “You cannot get rid of something that has already been exchanged.”

Our Jang Uk learnt something important whilst deciphering what turned out to be a love letter [2] from Songrim’s founder to his blind lover, the leader of Jinyowon. 

To an emotionally back-pedalling Mu-deok: 

“But know this, master, your pupil has recently learnt to read what cannot be seen”.

Walking slowly towards her…  Stopping directly in front of her… Standing so close together, the emotional static so charged it’s almost visible.

“You must focus when you are trying to read what you cannot see”.

“Then… call out the name of the receiver… Mu-deok.”

Those eyes and the message being conveyed, both are as bright as his King’s Star.  Mu-deok is panicked that Jang Uk can so easily see into her heart.  Denial appears to be her only escape.  Except, he’s ready for that move as well. Stepping back, Jang Uk calmly advises:

“Some things are hard to see because they are hidden, not because they do not exist.”

Jang Uk declares his heart clearly and eloquently. Mu-deok rejects him cruelly. His response showcases what it is to feel indignant and angry and in love all at once. Indignant that she has mocked the truth they share. Angry that she so boldly lies about her feelings for him. Powerful in expressing something we have all likely faced at least once in our lives. Rare in its perfectly nuanced delivery. Moving in its ability to transfer the force of emotion to its viewers.

Upon Mu-deok dismissing his confession:

“…You were so horrible to me, yet I couldn’t get you out of my head.  I miss you first thing in the morning, all throughout the day, and even when I lie down to go to sleep...”

“… I confessed my feelings and you ruined it with poison.  So you should at least know my symptoms. You said you were my antidote.  All I did was sincerely tell you that I missed you, you wicked assassin.  You called it poison.  So from now on, I will complain to you about my symptoms. After all, I was poisoned.  I have nothing to be embarrassed about. You call yourself an antidote, so you deal with this toxin.”

That’s that, I guess. 

The viewer is left as speechless as Mu-deok, the recipient of the best confession ever.

What now?  First love is a tough one.  Especially when the one being loved is determined not to return the feeling.  Mu-deok causes Jang Uk to question her feelings for him.  That doubt transforms into jealousy.  Jealousy leads him to try to understand why she will not reciprocate what he is so sure is mutual.  He concludes, through the retrospection of memories, that whom she has feelings for is, in fact, his friend.  Now he tortures himself by recalling all the times her attention was on Seo Yul, the easy way they communicated, the lingering looks, and what he imagines were silent messages between them whilst at the remote Danhyanggok Valley and later in Songrim. He forgets that he and Mu-deok made their first unbreakable promise at Danhyanggok: that he, Jang Uk, will take her to the top of the tallest tree on the land, to the place where the bird’s nest is.  The promise that became the inspiration for the bird’s egg-shaped charms he had made and which they exchanged.  One each:  blue and red. Jealousy is without reason, however, and those who suffer it are beyond sense.  Still, to know we are loved, we need to hear it, see it, be reminded of it.

Hell, Mu-deok, what are you doing to this man you almost killed yourself to be with?

Always with an all-or-nothing attitude, Jang Uk falls into romantic depression.  He can’t sleep, he can’t train, he can’t function.  He spends all day in bed.  Mu-deok tries but fails to rouse him from his misery.  Another argument which, on the scale of conflict, would fail to even register as one. A pouting Jang Uk is hilarious.  It’s a surprise he doesn’t threaten to sell her.  He’s done so before. To be fair, Mu-Deok doesn’t know how badly her dismissal of his love confession has affected Jang Uk, so she can’t address the problem.  Now he won’t even speak to her.  It’s just all too painful for him. With a whiplash change of direction, suddenly, he’s up and about.  Brushing past Mu-deok, Jang Uk advises his training supervisor that he is going home for a break.  Stop him!  Even the viewer, much less Mu-deok, knows that there is something suspicious at the exception he is given to do as he pleases.  Luckily, his mood and confidence are restored by Maidservant Kim as she treats her ‘son’ to a mother’s love and understanding.  She will love him whether he succeeds or fails the training.  She will support him unconditionally in whatever he does or doesn’t do.  It reminds you how spoilt and pampered her Young Master Jang Uk has been all his life.  What a baby.  It’s the right place to be at this time.  It’s good to be reminded of his original goals.  Jang Uk remembers that the only pressure he is under is what he places upon himself. What a lucky young man.

Mu-deok is experiencing jealousy herself.  Medic Heo Yeom’s granddaughter, Heo Yun-ok, does not disguise her interest in Jang Uk.  She’s sophisticated, well educated, a doctor, pretty, and (damn it) friendly. Mu-deok is instantly intimidated by the young woman who is socially, financially and, she considers, visually superior to her.  I bet she’s regretting jilting Jang Uk now.  

She will, Mu-deok decides, deal with all that later.  First, she needs to resume the master role and get her pupil to return to increasing his internal energy.  She’s getting tired of waiting to have her own core of energy restored.  The solution?  Trick the crown prince into a bet against Jang Uk.  That was easy!  But the price will be a high one if she loses. 

Jang Uk is stunned to learn that Mu-deok bet the jade bird’s egg token he gave to her.  It’s a yin and yang pair of, as it turns out, love relics. The significance and magic they contain are presently unknown to the reluctant lovers.  The argument they have over Mu-deok’s casual attitude towards Jang Uk’s sincerity is emotionally charged.  It’s the first time Jang Uk shows true anger towards Mu-deok.  He will accept the bet, he tells her, as he does not want the crown prince to keep what was a gift to her.  Not least because it contains his feelings for her.  And that it represents their loyalty towards one another.  But he also regrets having given it to her.  Apparently unfazed, Mu-deok demands that he win the bet as that gift from him is the most valuable thing she owns, is her most treasured possession.  Jang Uk walks away from Mu-deok without looking back.

 Leonora

asiandramaobserver@gmail.com

[1] Alchemy of Souls. Screenplay by Hong Jang-eun and Hong Mi-ran; Director, Park Joon-hwa;  www.netflix.com/watch/81608518

[2] “Words of the Heart”, by Master Seo Gyeong, founder of Songrim and original discoverer of the Ice Stone’s extreme possibilities.