TL/ED – Miso
Among the young experts of Xinxing County there were some who went by the name of the Xinxing Three Dogs. Three sons of bitches who roamed Xinxing in a pack, tormenting people.
One of them was the Mad Dog.
He had learned his martial arts from the Black Path men of the back alleys, and having the least proper foundation of the three, he was the weakest of them. But his temper was that of a rabid dog, and he was famous for being the cruelest and most lawless of the three.
Another of them was the Laughing Dog.
He was the youngest captain in the White Dragon Gang. He was always high on Daze Powder, wandering about with a loose grin on his face.
He looked like a good-natured sort, but he was forever pressing Daze Powder on everyone around him and selling it besides, Xinxing's number one addict.
The Resentful Dog, Jeon Tae-gwang.
He was the youngest disciple of Shin Ja-eon, Sect Master of the Severing Sword Sect, who was counted among Xinxing County's Three Great Experts.
His master being as fine as he was, his martial arts were strong to match, and so he played leader to the Xinxing Three Dogs.He had one more sobriquet.
People called the Sect Master's four direct disciples the Four Severing Swords, and of them the eldest was the Great Severing Sword, while the second and third were the Middle Severing Sword and the Lesser Severing Sword.
But the youngest, Jeon Tae-gwang, went by a separate name, the Weak Severing Sword. Because for one of the Four Severing Swords, he was uncommonly weak.
His resentment toward his master and his senior brothers ran deep, and he worked off that burning in his chest by going out and committing every sort of outrage.
And then, one day, while the three of them were roaming about in a pack tormenting people.
The story of Yeon So-wol reached their ears.
- I mean that Annam woodcutter, Yeon So-wol. Have you heard? They say he's become Great hero Yi Yu-baek's adopted son.
- Is that true? So the woodcutter from Annam's got it made, has he?
- I heard the story exactly as it happened. They say Great hero Yi Yu-baek told him this. Your talent is too great for me to teach. Instead I'll become your adoptive father and help you! Go out into the wider world and take a proper master for yourself! That's what he said.
- Great hero Yi Yu-baek said that? Come on. A man of his standing is a real expert, the kind they know about even in the big cities like Duanzhou or Foshan. And he said he wasn't good enough?
- That's exactly why it's so astonishing.
- Bullshit. Talk about exaggeration. The man took up martial arts at eighteen. Like hell that happened.
- We've barely met and you're already talking to me like that? Where are your manners?
- What, you got a problem with it? Do you?
- Of all the crazy.......
- But if he started martial arts at eighteen, doesn't that make it even more impressive? I honestly don't see it.
- It's impressive, sure. I'm just saying don't force the praise.
- Your mother. If you won't praise a man who took up martial arts at eighteen, earned the recognition of the greatest expert in Xinxing, and got himself made an adopted son, then who exactly do you praise?
- What? Your mother? You want to die?
- Oh. You heard that? I was only talking to myself.
- Why, you toad-faced.......
- All right, all right. If you're going to fight, go do it over there.
Voices that drifted over to them out of nowhere while they were playing dominoes.
The first to react to the story was the perpetually furious Resentful Dog, Jeon Tae-gwang.
"Listen to them run their mouths. Bunch of peasants who don't know the first thing about martial arts. What do they expect from some punk who started at eighteen? What do they know about inner energy? About Internal cultivation methods? What? Yi Yu-baek said he wasn't good enough to teach him? What a load of goddamn horseshit."
The Laughing Dog snickered.
"Still, Yi Yu-baek's sworn brother....... no. His adopted......son? Heh. Why's it so hard to say. Anyway. Yeah. Sounds like the adopted son part is real, though? Wonder if he likes Daze Powder too."
The Mad Dog took a pinch of Daze Powder from the Laughing Dog, snorted it sharply up his nose, and sneered.
"Ha. Look at him move up in the world. Some savage out of Annam, and he's got himself a rich father like Yi Yu-baek to wait on."
At first,
it was only that much passing interest.
But everywhere the three of them went, the stories about Yeon So-wol kept reaching them.
- That Yeon So-wol. The way I hear it, Great hero Yi Yu-baek recognized him as Second-rate.
- Second-rate? Does that even make sense?
- I couldn't believe it either, so I went and asked someone from the Hall of Refined Arts myself. And they said it's true.
- No, that really doesn't add up. A friend of mine trained himself half to death from the age of ten. 10 straight years of nothing but martial arts, and all anyone ever called him was Third-rate, so he gave it up. And a man who started at eighteen is Second-rate? Already?
- Huh. If that's true, he's a genius. The kind you don't see once in 100 years. If he'd only started 3 years earlier!
The Resentful Dog snapped with irritation.
"Second-rate my ass. When Yi Yu-baek says Second-rate, he means that Exhaled Smoke and Cloud stage, doesn't he?"
"That's the one. Exhaled Cloud and Cloud. No, no. Exhaled Smoke and Smoke. No....... Ugh. My head's fuzzy. Whatever, that thing."
"Like hell it makes sense. Punk's been at it half a year, and Exhaled Smoke and Cloud? My ass. Do they think inner energy training is some kind of joke?"
"Whoa. Exhaled Smoke and Cloud in half a year? How long did it take me to get there? 5 years or so? Man. He's a genius, a real genius. Starting at eighteen and getting that far, he's not a once-in-100-years genius, he's a once-in-1,000-years one."
The Mad Dog was slowly starting to share in the Resentful Dog's irritation.
His eyes flashed white.
And still the stories about Yeon So-wol kept coming. At the inns, at the cockfighting pits and the pavilions. At the market and at the well.
- So does that make them the Four Young masters of Refined Arts now?
- Then what do we call that Yeon So-wol?
- Let's see. The first is the Refined Arts Young master. The second is the Gale Young master. The third is the Clear Wind Young master. So Yeon So-wol would be.......
- He's the new one, near enough. How about the New Young master? [TL: the two-character coinage here, 신랑, is also the ordinary word for "bridegroom".]
- Isn't that just what you call a man getting married?
- Ah.
- Did you leave your brain as an offering over at Guo'en Temple?
- ......That's harsh. You've wounded me.
- Didn't ask.
- .......
- Anyway, that Yeon So-wol. Do we even have to make one up for him? Can't we just call him the Annam woodcutter?
- That's fair enough.
- The Annam woodcutter is a mouthful, so let's cut it down and just call him the Annam fellow.
- Now you're all being cruel.
The Resentful Dog's hands shook.
"A sobriquet? They're sitting around picking out a sobriquet for him? For a punk who's only just taken up martial arts?"
The Resentful Dog thought he might go mad with jealousy.
Thankfully no proper sobriquet had stuck to the man yet, but the mere fact that somebody had bothered to think one up was enough to set his teeth grinding.
It was the same for the Mad Dog.
"Man. Fuck. Seriously. I'm so damn jealous. I clawed my way out of a shit pit just to survive, and all they hung on me was Mad Dog."
The Laughing Dog still couldn't be bothered to care.
"You know, maybe that Annam fellow likes Daze Powder too? That'd be nice. Then we could call him the Daze Powder Young master. Hee hee."
Each in his own way, the three sons of bitches of Xinxing County took the name of Yeon So-wol to heart.
Yi Yu-baek said.
"So-wol. Rest is training too. In less than half a year, your essence, your qi, and your spirit have gone through a greater change than a caterpillar does becoming a butterfly. So imagine what state your body must be in now. Even iron has to cool after it's been heated red, or it never hardens. For the next month, let's rest and do nothing but basic training. The elixir I gave you would be better taken a month from now, once you've begun on a movement art."
And so Yeon So-wol's rest began.
He spent his days at the Hall of Refined Arts with Yi Yu-baek, building the bond between them as son and father.
More than Yeon So-wol had expected, the two of them got along beautifully.
"So-wol. Try this on."
One day Yi Yu-baek came with a white single-layer overrobe.
When he put on the pale blue knight-errant robe with its trim sleeves and close fit, and draped the thin single-layer white overrobe over it, the faintest blue seeped softly through from underneath, and the whole thing looked remarkably refined.
"And how about this with it."
He held out a long, thin cord of red knotwork.
"This is what's called a sword cord. Here. Before you put the overrobe on, you wrap it underneath and tie the knot like so, and you hang your sword from it. The sword you leave half hidden under the skirt of the robe. Only, you can't handle a real sword yet, so I'll give you a wooden one. I carved it out of ebony myself."
Fully dressed, Yeon So-wol looked at himself in a polished bronze mirror.
The white overrobe hung from his shoulders, blue glimpsing through it and then not, and the open front revealed the very pale blue of the knight-errant robe. Over that, the thin cord, dark and red, was wrapped and tied so that the eye lingered on it a moment, and the pitch-black wooden sword hidden under the fall of the robe swung from the sword cord, half seen, half not.
His hair, which he had grown out a fair length by now, was gathered up and bound in a bamboo crown for a dashing finish.
All of it prepared for him by Yi Yu-baek.
'Wow.'
Yeon So-wol turned this way and that, marveling at himself over and over.
'This is silk, isn't it? Actual silk. I never even got to wear this back in Korea.'
Here the common local word for it was silk rather than the term he had grown up with. They called it plain silk as well.
And among those, the ones woven this thin were called gauze silk.
Clothing made of gauze silk was as light as paper.
To the touch it rustled and yet clung to the hand, and its color had a soft, understated quality he had never seen in his life.
'So this is what a rich man's life is like.'
Yeon So-wol felt satisfaction blooming inside his chest.
Back in the Republic of Korea he had dreamed of working hard and making a success of himself.
When he fell into this barbaric Murim, he had thought that dream was lost to him forever.......
'Not bad at all.'
Good clothes. A good house. A clean, sweet-smelling place to live.
It was really quite decent.
If this was how things went.
It seemed he could live rather well here.
"Um. Hall Mas, ahem. I mean. Father."
"Yes, So-wol."
The word 'father' still didn't sit easily on his tongue, but Yeon So-wol had grown genuinely fond of Yi Yu-baek by now. And Yi Yu-baek treated him more easily than he had before.
People whose tastes match grow close in no time at all.
"Father, you've given me clothes, and medicinal herbs to wash myself clean with, and oils and salves to make my skin and hair smooth. And you taught me all of it. How to dress properly, how to wash well with those things, how to apply them to my skin and hair."
"I did."
"I'm truly grateful. There's just one thing I've been curious about."
"Don't dance around it. Say it."
"Scent. Scent. The incense you burn, the scent you carry in a pouch, the scent you put on your skin. Any kind at all. I've always wondered what scents you use. That's the one thing you've never taught me, so this son has gone on wondering."
Yeon So-wol's eyes shone.
Scent.
It was the thing he had come to obsess over most since falling into the Murim.
A world full of stench.
Here, Yeon So-wol had come to understand with painful clarity just how ordinary it had been for the 21st century to be surrounded by fragrance.
Shampoo had a scent, detergent had a scent, so did fabric softener and dish soap, there were air fresheners in the bathroom, the cleaners for wiping down buildings and windows had a scent, floor wax had a scent, and even tap water had a smell all its own. It had a deodorizing effect, too.
Even leaving aside proper fragrance products like perfume, it was a world overflowing with scent.
That was the 21st century.
So ever since he fell into this place, Yeon So-wol had grown steadily more obsessed with scent.
The incense burned in a room and the scent carried on the body were a kind of ward, a kind of talisman.
A fragrant shield that protected him sweetly from the stenches outside.
From the very first time he met Yi Yu-baek, hadn't he marveled at that distinctive, faintly sweet lemon scent?
Yeon So-wol wanted a fragrance like that of his own.
At that, Yi Yu-baek smiled.
"So-wol."
"Yes."
"You already smell good. Thanks to that excellent Exhaled Smoke and Cloud of yours."
"That alone has trouble pushing back the stench around me."
"So-wol."
"Yes."
"But a proper scent is truly expensive. More expensive than its own weight in gold. Which is to say it's costly enough that I can't hand it over lightly, even to a son."
It was blunt, but Yeon So-wol wasn't flustered in the least.
He'd had no intention of shamelessly demanding it in the first place.
"Then at least tell me what it is. I have money of my own."
At that, Yi Yu-baek smiled again.
"A scent is a man's own trace. No two people can carry the same trace. I'd sooner teach you my martial arts than tell you my scent."
Yeon So-wol was a little sorry to hear it, but he didn't let his disappointment show.
'Right. It'll mean more if I find my own scent for myself. It's been a while, so I should go and see Elder Jo Man-seok and ask his advice about scents.'
He steeled his resolve.
"I see. In that case, I'll go and find a scent of my own. One that will never lose to yours, Father."
"Good. That's how it should be."
The gazes of Yeon So-wol and Yi Yu-baek met and clashed hotly in the air between them.
A street in Xinxing County.
A young man walked down the road.
Uncommonly tall. Uncommonly handsome.
An overrobe whose skirts and sleeves billowed wide along his long limbs.
Beneath it, a thin line of red sword cord showed where it was tied over the very pale blue knight-errant robe, and the black wooden sword hanging from it was half visible, half not.
And the hair bound up under a bamboo crown made for an ensemble that no common person would ever dare attempt.
Yet every time his robes stirred, a fragrance drifted from them that could never be smelled on those streets.
"Wow......."
"What in the world."
"He looks incredible."
"That's him, isn't it? The one who became Great hero Yi Yu-baek's adopted son."
"That's right. Yeon So-wol, from Annam."
"Look at the way he walks. And those piercing eyes. He really does look properly taught."
"Wow. He lives in a different world from mine."
The women were spellbound, and the men voiced their awe.
Then one of them cried out in admiration.
"The Elegant Young master. What a magnificent Young hero."
"Elegant Young master? Ha. Now that's a sobriquet that fits him perfectly."
They took the 'Young master' from the Four Young masters of Refined Arts, the word for a fine young man, and joined to it the 'Elegant' of elegance and refinement, and called him the Elegant Young master.
They must have liked it, because the sound of it spread outward, Elegant Young master, Elegant Young master.
And as chance would have it, the most resentful of Xinxing's three sons of bitches, Jeon Tae-gwang, was passing by and saw the whole thing.
"Oh, for. Fuck. A martial artist ought to be judged on his martial arts. And here they are going on about the Elegant Young master."
Grrrind.
His face screwed up violently as he watched Yeon So-wol come strolling toward him at his leisure.