SIZZLE.
The sound of fat dripping onto the fire filled the night in Great Peace Village.
An entire enormous pig turned slowly over the wood fire.
Clear fat beaded across its skin as it roasted to a golden brown, then dripped down in heavy drops.
Whenever the fat struck the coals, it hissed as fragrant smoke burst upward.
“Gulp.”
The sound of people swallowing came from every direction.
Three hundred laborers who had completed the ice-storehouse construction, along with the members of our village—more than four hundred people in all—had their eyes fixed solely on the pig.
“Big Brother... when do we eat? I am getting dizzy from hunger.”
Chilbok asked desperately. He was already waiting with chopsticks in hand.
I cut into the meat to see whether it was cooked through. Clear juices flowed from the pale flesh within.
Perfect.
“Let us eat! Tonight, it is on me!”
My shout sent cheers shaking Great Peace Village.
Beodeuri and the kitchen women rushed in, skillfully carving up the meat.
Thick cuts of steaming pork were piled high on every plate.
Crisp skin and moist meat. The rich flavor of pork fat coated the mouth, while cool makgeolli washed away the greasiness.
Bonfires blazed across the courtyard, and laughter bloomed everywhere.
A wild meat feast in the middle of a snow-covered field on a winter night.
This place was a paradise without hunger or cold.
At least, inside the walls it was.
The problem was the wind.
The winter wind was fierce, but it was excellent at carrying scents.
The smell of roasting pork crossed the walls of Great Peace Village, rode the northwesterly wind to nearby Galsan Village, then traveled farther still to the crumbling thatched cottages at the foot of the mountain.
***
On the outskirts of Galsan Village stood an old house with half its roof collapsed.
Yi In-su sat on the icy floor, reading.
No, he was pretending to read.
The rumbling in his stomach was so loud that he could not focus on the words.
“Father... I am hungry.”
His five-year-old youngest son whined weakly.
His wife, sitting beside the boy, swallowed dryly and patted his back.
Their dinner was a single bowl of thin porridge, boiled with an excessive amount of water.
There were so few grains of rice that they could have been counted. The rest consisted of pine needles and tree bark.
“Bear with it a little longer. Tomorrow... something will turn up tomorrow.”
Yi In-su cleared his throat.
His family had served as hojang, the heads of the local clerks, for generations.
Though the family fortune had declined amid the chaos of the military regime, and they now struggled merely to put food in their mouths, he had endured by clinging to the pride of coming from a distinguished family.
Then—
Sniff, sniff.
His wife flared her nostrils.
Through a tear in the paper door, an unfamiliar yet maddeningly delightful scent entered with the cold wind.
It was greasy, savory, and rich.
“What... is that smell?”
His wife asked as if entranced.
Yi In-su smelled it, too.
It was unmistakably pork. And the scent suggested that an enormous quantity of it was being roasted.
“Th-That way...”
Yi In-su looked toward the southern marshes, in the direction of Great Peace Village.
Even amid the darkness, that place alone was as brightly lit as day.
Faint, boisterous laughter drifted over on the wind.
“Choi San... It is that Choi brat’s place.”
An edge entered Yi In-su’s voice.
When Choi San had first arrived, he had laughed at him. He had thought, Let us see how many days he lasts on land haunted by ghosts.
Yet Choi San had harvested rice, grown vegetables in winter, and now he was holding a meat feast.
“Those lowborn wretches... He is feeding meat to commoners?”
Yi In-su clenched his fists.
A learned scholar like him was starving, while ignorant peasants over there were tearing into meat.
His sense of deprivation turned to fury, and his fury twisted into self-justification.
“Dear... could we not go over there and ask for work? Even the Kims next door...”
“Be quiet!”
Yi In-su shouted.
“In my veins runs the ink of a scholar! How could I lower myself to work beneath slaves? I would rather starve to death than suffer such humiliation!”
“But the children...”
Despite his wife’s tearful plea, Yi In-su turned away.
Pride. It was the last property he possessed.
But it could not drive the beggar out of his stomach.
As the night deepened, the scent became ever more torturous.
At last, Yi In-su rose.
“I am going out for some air.”
He left the house.
But his steps were not taking him out for fresh air.
Instead of a writing brush, he held a sickle in his hand.
Beneath the walls of Great Peace Village.
Yi In-su crouched with three or four sturdy men from the village.
All of them were men driven mad by hunger.
“Scholar Yi, are you sure this is all right?”
“Be quiet. Those people farm land they cleared illegally. They have broken the law of the land, so it is no crime for us to take a little of their grain.”
Yi In-su used absurd reasoning to justify himself.
This was not theft, he told himself.
It was the enforcement of justice.
They stepped on each other’s shoulders and climbed over the wall.
The inner courtyard was quiet. It seemed that everyone had collapsed into sleep after the feast.
“There. That storehouse.”
Yi In-su pointed at the rice storehouse.
The moment they crept forward and reached for the door handle—
“Hey.”
A thick voice came from behind them.
It was low, heavy, and rough enough to seem as though it scraped against the ground.
Yi In-su felt as if his heart had stopped.
He slowly turned his head.
A mountain stood behind him, its back to the moonlight.
It was Manseok.
He held a club in one hand and a torch in the other.
Then people dressed in black appeared in a rush behind him.
“So I was wondering what sort of rats had crawled in...”
Manseok thrust the torch forward.
Dazzled, Yi In-su raised an arm to shield his eyes.
“Catch them all!”
“Eek!”
The men who had come with him tried to flee in terror, but the encirclement had already been completed.
Our workers subdued them with their clubs.
“Let me go! Do not lay your hands on me!”
Yi In-su struggled to the very end.
But before Manseok’s grip, he was no different from a child.
He was seized by the nape and dragged away.
In the middle of the courtyard.
I stood before the kneeling thieves, while Chilbok stood beside me with a yawn.
“Big Brother, we caught these bastards trying to steal rice.”
I raised a lantern and shone it over their faces.
Every one of them was terrified.
Except for one man.
Yi In-su alone raised his head and glared at me.
“Are you Scholar Yi, the man who lives beneath the mountain?”
“That is right! I am Yi In-su!”
Though he was a thief, he spoke boldly.
“A man who reads books should not be climbing over other people’s walls.”
“Hmph! There are rumors everywhere that you amassed wealth through improper means. It is not right to monopolize the wealth bestowed by Heaven. On behalf of the people, I—”
“Cut the bullshit.”
I interrupted him.
It was the typical sophistry of a hypocrite.
“You came because you were hungry, did you not?”
“...”
“Let us be honest. Your family is on the verge of starving to death, so you came here.”
Yi In-su’s eyes trembled. I had struck the heart of the matter.
“I will give you a chance. Instead of turning you over to the authorities, work here. I will feed you and pay you wages.”
I made the same offer I had given the other thieves.
The other men immediately bowed and cried out, “Thank you!”
But Yi In-su was different.
“I refuse!”
He shouted.
“I would rather starve to death than carry night soil beneath the likes of lowborn slaves! My pride will not allow it!”
“Your pride?”
I gave a hollow laugh.
“Will that pride feed you? Your wife and children are starving right now.”
“For a scholar, honor is more important than life! Kill me instead!”
He remained stubborn to the end.
What a frustrating fool. Such outdated stupidity.
“Is that so? You would rather die?”
I looked down at him with cold eyes.
“Fine. I will grant your wish. Manseok!”
“Yes, Big Brother!”
“Bind these men tightly and lock them in the shed. At daybreak, we will take them to the magistrate’s office.”
“Big Brother, should we not simply put him to work? He seems to know how to read, at least.”
Manseok asked as though it were a waste.
“No. A man who does not know his place will only cause trouble, no matter how useful he is. Let the law deal with him.”
***
The next morning.
We headed to the Gold Province magistrate’s office, dragging the thieves behind us as though they were strings of dried fish.
Yi In-su had hollow eyes after being unable to sleep all night, but his head remained stiffly raised.
At the entrance to the magistrate’s office, the guards who had been dozing waved us away in annoyance.
“What is this? First thing in the morning?”
“We caught some thieves. Please deal with them.”
Manseok tried to hand over the ropes binding them.
But the captain of the guards gave an enormous yawn, then snorted.
“Famine has brought swarms of petty thieves lately, and the jail is full. We will give them a warning and release them, so take them back. Or bury them yourselves for all I care.”
He simply did not want the trouble.
Law and order had long since collapsed.
“I said go away! What rotten luck, dealing with this first thing in the morning...”
The guard raised his club threateningly.
Swish.
I took a jade token from my robes and waved it before their eyes.
It bore the emblem of the Choi Clan of Cheorwon.
It gleamed brilliantly in the morning sun.
“...?!”
The guard’s eyes widened as though they might pop out of his head.
The Choi Clan of Gaegyeong—the powerful family that held the real authority beneath the military regime.
“My name is Choi San. I came to see with my own eyes how the honorable County Magistrate severely punishes thieves, so that I may report it to the elders of my family... but you are telling me to go away?”
“N-No, sir! We failed to recognize you and have committed a crime deserving death!”
The guards went pale and threw themselves flat on the ground.
Then they shouted at the top of their lungs toward the interior of the office.
“Magistrate! Magistrate! A young master of the Choi Clan has arrived!”
A moment later, the County Magistrate came running out in his socks, without even having properly straightened his clothes.
The moment he saw me, he bent ninety degrees at the waist.
“Good heavens! What brings such an honored guest to this humble place? Had you sent word beforehand, I would have gone out to welcome you myself!”
The County Magistrate was drenched in sweat.
He had heard the rumor that Choi Woo’s nephew lived within his jurisdiction, but he had never expected me to actually visit.
“My greetings are late. I am Choi San.”
“Yes, yes! I have heard much about you. I hear you are conducting truly excellent farming.”
“It is all thanks to you, County Magistrate. However... some rats entered my house last night.”
I pointed at Yi In-su and the other thieves tied up behind me.
The County Magistrate’s gaze turned vicious at once.
Before me, he was endlessly servile. Before commoners, he was a grim reaper.
He immediately ordered the punishment frame brought out and held a summary trial.
“You dared rob Young Master Choi’s household! Have you lost your minds?”
The County Magistrate roared.
Only then did Yi In-su realize that something was seriously wrong.
This was not the useless magistrate’s office he knew.
“I will now pronounce judgment!”
The County Magistrate briefly watched my reaction, then declared an exceptionally harsh sentence.
“Breaking and entering, and attempted theft! One hundred strokes!”
“O-One hundred strokes?!”
Yi In-su’s face turned white.
A hundred strokes would tear the flesh from his buttocks and shatter his bones. It was no different from a death sentence.
Even a strong man could not endure fifty. A gaunt man like Yi In-su would likely die screaming after only ten.
“And!”
The County Magistrate did not stop there.
“You will compensate the victim three times the value of the goods you intended to steal. Young Master Choi, how much was your loss?”
I pretended to think it over.
“Well... We caught them before they could steal anything, but had we not, they might have taken ten seom of rice and even our valuable liquor... I would estimate the loss at roughly one hundred nyang.”
“Did you hear that? Your compensation is three hundred nyang!”
Three hundred nyang.
It was a sum an ordinary commoner could not touch even in a lifetime.
“If you fail to pay it within one year, you, your wife, and your children will all be confiscated as slaves!”
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The verdict was delivered.
Yi In-su sank to the ground as if his soul had left his body.
It would not end if he died under a hundred strokes.
His beloved wife and young son would be reduced to slavery and live like beasts for the rest of their lives.
It was the catastrophe brought about by his empty pride.
“Guards! Tie those men to the punishment frame and beat them severely!”
The guards rushed forward and bound Yi In-su to the frame.
The paddle cut through the air.
“W-Wait! Please wait!”
Yi In-su screamed.
His proud, upright head dropped.
“P-Please spare me! I was wrong! I have committed a crime deserving death!”
He begged in tears.
“A hundred strokes will kill me! What will become of my family if I die? Please... please spare me just this once!”
I walked up to him and looked down coldly.
“Now you are finally speaking sense.”
“My lord... Young Master Choi... I will do anything you tell me. If you tell me to carry dung, I will carry it. If you tell me to crawl, I will crawl. Please, only spare my family...”
Just then, a commotion rose outside the magistrate’s office, followed by the sound of women and children crying.
It was Yi In-su’s wife and the thieves’ families, who had rushed over after hearing the news.
“My lord! Husband!”
Yi In-su’s wife crawled across the dirt.
Behind her, filthy children followed, weeping.
“Oh, Young Master Choi! Please forgive him just this once!”
His wife clutched at my trouser leg.
“My husband is kind at heart... He simply lost his senses after going hungry for days... He will never do it again. Never.”
“Father! Do not die!”
His five-year-old son wept, reaching for his father.
Even the others at the magistrate’s office had reddened eyes at that sight.
Bound to the punishment frame, Yi In-su shed bloody tears.
“Dear... I am sorry... I have failed you...”
I let out a deep sigh.
This was enough of a lesson.
If I pressed them any further, it would leave nothing but resentment.
“County Magistrate.”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“My heart is too soft to bear the sight of a crying child.”
I put on a troubled expression.
“They did commit a crime, but this is a famine. How desperate must they have been? I will take them back, discipline them, and make them pay for their crimes. Would you entrust them to me?”
The County Magistrate smiled as though he had been waiting for those words.
In truth, he was probably burdened by the prospect of beating people to death as well.
“Ah, Young Master’s mercy is like that of the Buddha. If that is your wish, then it shall be so.”
“Thank you. And this...”
I took a pouch containing ten nyang of silver from my robes and discreetly slipped it into the County Magistrate’s sleeve.
“Buy the guards a drink for their hard work. And I will make certain the elders of my family hear that there is a truly wise magistrate governing this province.”
“Oh! Thank you! Thank you very much!”
The County Magistrate’s mouth stretched from ear to ear.
He had received money and secured a connection to the central political world. Business could not have gone better today.
We returned to Great Peace Village, leading the thieves and their families with us.
They walked in a long line like a string of candies, heads lowered as though they were criminals.
The moment we reached the courtyard, I told Beodeuri, “Bring out the food first.”
“Yes!”
Steaming white rice, clear radish soup, and the meat side dishes left from yesterday were laid out before them.
The moment Yi In-su’s family saw the table, their eyes went wide.
Pride no longer mattered.
The children grabbed meat with their hands, while his wife hurriedly gulped down the soup.
Yi In-su also swallowed rice through his tears.
The warm grains passing down his throat were far more precious than the pride he had tried so desperately to protect.
Once they had filled their stomachs to some extent, Yi In-su crawled before me and fell to his knees.
“My lord... Thank you for saving my life. I will never forget this grace.”
“Then how will you repay the price of your crime?”
When I asked, Yi In-su’s wife stepped forward.
“Our whole family will come and work! We do not need money. Give us only food, and we will work for free for the rest of our lives! Please spare my husband!”
“That is right! We will help, too!”
The families of the other thieves also offered to work for free.
But I frowned.
“For free?”
“Yes! We will not take a single coin in wages!”
“Then what will your families eat? What will you wear? How will you buy firewood? Are you planning to live on dew?”
“Th-That...”
His wife was left speechless.
She had said it in desperation to save her husband, but it was a promise impossible to keep.
“I hate people who make promises they cannot take responsibility for. I hate thoughtless self-sacrifice too.”
I glared at Yi In-su.
“Especially a man who calls himself the head of a household while starving his wife and children just to preserve his pride.”
Yi In-su could not lift his head.
His son clutched his father’s clothes and sniffled.
“Do not scold my father... My father is kind...”
My heart tightened at the sight.
I sighed and declared, “Listen carefully. From today onward, you are all workers of Great Peace Village.”
“Y-Yes! We understand!”
“These are the terms. Come here every morning at sunrise to work. There is plenty to do. Hauling ice, carrying night soil, plowing fields... Do not expect easy labor.”
I held up three fingers.
“In return, you will receive three meals a day.”
“Th-Three meals?!”
A murmur spread through the crowd.
For the common people of Goryeo, two meals a day were standard.
Lunch was more like a snack reserved for kings, nobles, or people doing especially hard labor.
Yet I was offering them three full meals a day—and white rice at that.
“And you will be paid fair wages as well. I will deduct part of it as payment for your crimes, but there will be enough for your families to eat and for you to buy clothes.”
“...!”
Yi In-su abruptly lifted his head.
He looked as though he could not believe it.
They were in a position where they could have been made slaves without complaint, yet I would feed them and pay them?
“M-My lord... Why...?”
“I am not giving it to you because I like you.”
I replied bluntly.
“I give it to you because people work well when they are full and do not entertain foolish thoughts. And it means you should earn your food honestly instead of thinking about theft.”
I gave Yi In-su’s shoulder a light pat.
“You said you can read, did you not? I will have you organize the ledgers and track inventory, so put your head to work. Unless you would rather carry night soil.”
Huge tears streamed down Yi In-su’s face.
He repeatedly struck his head against the ground and sobbed.
“Sniff... Thank you... Thank you so much... Even if I must become a dog, I will repay this grace...”
His wife and children bowed deeply to me as well.
The other workers in the courtyard watched with solemn expressions.
I signaled to Chilbok.
“Bring the work pledge. Have them thumbprint it.”
“Yes, Big Brother!”
With trembling hands, Yi In-su pressed his thumbprint onto the contract.
It was a work agreement that had almost become a slave document.
“Starting tomorrow, if you are late, you get no soup. Go home, all of you!”
The people repeatedly bowed as they left.
But unlike when they had arrived, their steps now held strength.
The hope of work to do tomorrow, and food to eat.
Manseok approached with a grin.
“Big Brother, you ended up giving everything away again.”
“I did not give it away. I invested it.”
I watched Yi In-su’s retreating back.
Once a man like that truly changed his heart, he would become a more formidable loyal retainer than anyone else.
Literate administrative workers were difficult to find. I had acquired one very cheaply.
“Besides, if they eat three meals a day, they will have too much energy left to waste time on anything else. We need to keep them busy.”
“Hehe. Big Brother, you really are wicked.”
“I will take that as praise.”
Great Peace Village had gained more members.
Its walls had grown higher, and its interior had become stronger.
The winter wind remained cold, but spring had already arrived in the hearts of Great Peace Village’s people.