One day in a small coastal town, there lived a young girl named Min. Her parents
having died while she was young, Min was adopted and cared for by a strict and cold
nobleman called Jae-Hwa. Owner of a fishing company and a true businessman, Jae-Hwa
immediately put the eight-year old Min to work repairing fishing nets.
She rapidly showed much talent and her well-crafted nets helped Jae-Hwa to expand
his wealth. When Jae-Hwa realized her great potential, Min's duties were expanded.
By the age of twelve, she was already a master seamstress, creating stunning clothing
highly prized by noblemen in the region. Through Min's fabulous work and Jae-Hwa's
business cunning, his fortune continued to grow.
What Jae-Hwa's cunning overlooked, however, was the restless cleverness of his
adopted servant. Indeed, Min was among the most intelligent of her people. And
with intelligence comes reflection. While Min worked diligently and obediently
for her master she knew that his treatment of her was unfair. She knew that she
deserved to be free from her life of servitude. Even as she toiled away, she
thought of her escape.
Unbeknownst to Jae-Hwa, the charming Min convinced one of her master's scribes to
teach her how to read and write. She quickly immersed herself in all writings she
could find. She learned of the Tao, the eight trigrams, and the four totem animals.
To her innate cunning, she added the wisdom of great minds such as Confucius and
Sun-Tzu. She identified her master's largest weakness: Greed. She devised her plan.
Trading a beautiful scarf for fine paper and ink, Min wrote a legend. Many,
including Jae-Hwa, knew that the Winds came from a secret place high in the
mountains. Min wrote a legend about how one skilled enough could, by traveling
to the home of the Winds, weave the wind itself into magical cloth. This cloth
could then be used to create clothing and armor of unparalleled beauty.
Unfortunately, Min's original legend has been lost through time, but it was said
to be so well written as to enchant any who read it.
Jae-Hwa, unaware of the legend's author, was among these. "Garments made from
the winds could be sold for the wealth of Kings!" he though, "and surely there
is no seamstress more gifted than my Min." He had provisions gathered and prepared
to set Min on a journey to the realm of the Winds to weave the magical garments.
This, of course, was exactly Min's plan. She would have enough supplies to begin
a new life in a far away town, finally free of this slavery.
But Jae-Hwa was not blinded completely by his greed. He sent a foul wizard, Chul, to
keep watch on Min and see that she was successful in this quest. Trapped, poor Min
had little choice but to search for the Winds with Chul overseeing her every move.
After two years of travel and dozens of adventures that are legends themselves, Min
and Chul finally discovered the land of the Winds. They could hear the winds
speaking quietly to each other in the distance. The ethereal creatures seemed to
take no heed of the two humans. Still longing for her own freedom, she recognized
the irony of the situation. Only by imprisoning another would she gain freedom from
her own prison. But what choice did she have?
