TL/ED – Miso
Before he met the Xinxing Three Dogs.
Yeon So-wol had been in a fine mood.
Old Jo Man-seok, whom he was seeing again after nearly half a year, looked healthy, and he shared everything he knew about fragrance without holding a thing back.
"Using a single scent, that's a novice. At best they'll take one thing, pine resin, mugwort, star anise, storax, burn it or dry it and carry it around, and that's the whole of it."
"Hm. That'd be where I am right now."
Like the model student of the 21st century that he was, Yeon So-wol took out paper, brush, and ink and wrote down Jo Man-seok's teachings.
"Only when you can take several scents, burning them, steaming them, drying them, melting them, and combine them into something rich, only then can a man be called an intermediate practitioner."
"That's a high bar for an intermediate practitioner."
"It is. Truth be told, I'm still stuck at intermediate myself."Here Jo Man-seok's eyes flashed.
"But they say an expert can take a single scent and make it as rich as if many had been blended together. And the other way round, when there are many scents, they say he can gather them into one."
"One as though it were many. Many as though they were one!"
"From what I hear, the only man in this Xinxing County who's climbed to that level is the County Magistrate."
Jo Man-seok not only taught him the broad outline and the finer points of the theory, he brought out the scents he had on hand and helped Yeon So-wol try his hand at making a scent of his own.
And so Yeon So-wol came away with an incense good for burning in his room and a scent pouch he could carry in his pocket.
"I love it!"
It wasn't as refined as Yi Yu-baek's, but it suited Yeon So-wol's own taste exactly.
Jo Man-seok smiled warmly.
"Myrrh has a very bitter scent, but it washes out turbid qi just as well. And to mix spikenard into that bitter myrrh for sweetness. Not bad at all. Spikenard on its own is a bit musky. But set beside myrrh it comes out fresh. A truly well-made scent."
"Thank you."
Delighted, Yeon So-wol held out a tael of silver.
"No need. What's all this......."
A tael of silver was a weighty sum, enough for an ordinary grown man to eat and sleep in Xinxing County for half a month and still have something left over to enjoy himself.
Jo Man-seok's face turned serious as he moved to refuse, but Yeon So-wol pushed the silver into his sleeve anyway.
"Please, sir. My father told me that a scent is a person's trace, and that no one can ever share their trace with another. And yet you've given away everything you know without holding back, so if anything, this one tael of silver is far too shabby a thing to offer."
"Haha. Well now. I'm just an old man who'll be dead soon, that's all; there's nothing left worth hoarding. Haha."
Getting a tael of silver was a happy thing in itself.
But the boy had added words on top of it that let him take it with his head high and his chest out, and Jo Man-seok felt a still greater joy.
'Isn't there something more I can do for him? Ah. I can give him that.'
He held out a thin booklet to Yeon So-wol.
<Xinxing Peril-Avoidance Manual> The secrets to avoiding danger in Xinxing County.
"What's this?"
"It's a set of secrets merchants pass among themselves. I keep a copy on hand like this, and when a merchant comes in from out of town I hand it over. When I stop somewhere else, I get one just like it from the merchants there."
Yeon So-wol blinked. Wasn't that something a merchant needed? He was a martial artist, wasn't he?
"You're a Jianghu practitioner. Once you became Great hero Yi Yu-baek's adopted son, that much was settled."
"Yes. I suppose so."
"But. They say that once a man is in the Jianghu, his fate is no longer his own. That's because the countless eyes of the Jianghu are fixed on you. So this will help. It'll let you know when the moment in this Xinxing County calls for careful conduct."
A Man in the Jianghu Has No Control Over His Own Fate.
Yeon So-wol felt a strange stirring at the words.
Come to think of it, Yi Yu-baek had said something similar once.
'In the Jianghu, how you carry yourself matters more than anything else. Want to roam the Jianghu freely? Then you'd better always read the room. You've got to know when to push back and when to grovel. Take that to heart. That movement art you say you want to learn is a skill that runs along the same line in the end.'
Yeon So-wol accepted the <Xinxing Peril-Avoidance Manual> with gratitude.
"May I read it now?"
"Of course. If anything puzzles you, just ask."
"Yes, sir."
So, ways to avoid danger in Xinxing.
'Is it a rundown of unspoken etiquette, the kinds of things that come off as rude? That sort of thing would be useful.'
Flip.
Yeon So-wol opened the booklet.
Should you meet with any of the following in Xinxing County, you must act exactly as the secrets set down here instruct. If you do not, your life cannot be guaranteed.
One.
If the street suddenly thickens with fog and you catch the smell of liquor, never raise your voice. Walk briskly, as though you have urgent business, and get clear of the fog. You must earn neither anger nor goodwill.
Two.
If you see a small child in silk clothes crying in the street, do not be hasty in helping.
If the child's body is strangely hot, flee at once.
As you flee, no matter what strange sounds you hear, you must never look back.
Silk clothes or not, it is by no means the child of a wealthy house, so do not let greed get the better of you.
"......?"
Yeon So-wol was flustered.,
'A rule-based creepypasta?'
Napolitan horror stories. And among them, the ones whose strange rules gave off a chill. [TL: "Napolitan" stories are a Japanese-origin internet genre of very short horror built from ordinary details that quietly add up to something wrong.]
Since they were short, they had been one of the few hobbies he still went looking for even in his third year of high school.
'But why is something like that in a merchants' handbook.......'
Yeon So-wol was thrown into confusion.
"This is....... Hm. That is. Could I ask what these actually are? Say, when the fog rolls in thick and there's a smell of liquor, what happens if you don't hurry past?"
Jo Man-seok answered seriously.
"I know. It looks like nonsense. All the more so because none of it's written out in detail. But it was put together from the testimony of people who lived through these things or witnessed them over ten, twenty years, so you can't call it pure nonsense. Take me, I went through that first one myself. A friend who was with me got curious, wouldn't leave, said he'd stay behind and check it out alone....... He was laid up sick for a month. Couldn't even remember what had happened."
"That's......."
Yeon So-wol felt a touch of bewilderment.
He had taken it for nothing more than a ghost story going around among merchants, but hearing that Jo Man-seok had been through it himself put the whole thing in a different light.
"But then. Why isn't it written out in detail, what happened and how it ended?"
"Can't be helped. Paper isn't cheap, for one, and explaining every circumstance to merchants from other regions one item at a time is no small nuisance either. If anything, the longer it runs the less it gets read, and the weaker the warning becomes. It's more effective to simply write that you mustn't do it."
Hearing that, Yeon So-wol had to admit the reasoning was entirely sound.
"Besides, this manual isn't the work of any one man. Who in this world would take on that kind of bother without being paid? Everyone just looks at the other copies and writes out one to keep. Then if they hear a new account, they add it. So naturally it's hard to verify every last entry. What we do is keep in anything there's a rumor about, where someone ignored it and something terrible happened."
Yeon So-wol nodded.
He understood well enough why it had been written to read like a ghost story.
But still.
'Even so, isn't this a bit too much like a ghost story?'
The second one in particular, the story about the child, was outright creepy.
"Still, don't you have any guesses? What this child in the second entry even is....... Could it be a ghost?"
At that, Jo Man-seok put on a knowing air.
"Ah. That one. As it happens, there's been a lot of talk about it among the merchants lately. That it might be about time we took it out."
"Oh. Really?"
"That's right. Word is there's been almost no testimony about it these past few years. And some say Great hero Yi Yu-baek settled the matter for good."
"What? My father?"
"Great hero Yi Yu-baek is acknowledged as the Foremost Expert of Xinxing now, but he wasn't from the start. There were more than a few bloody affairs before he became the Foremost Expert of Xinxing."
"Ah......."
Even now, the image Yeon So-wol had of a Jianghu practitioner was still that of a thug.
So that word, 'bloody affair', gave him a fairly chilling feeling.
'Father's a good man, no question about it, but in some ways he must be a truly terrifying one.'
Even so, he tilted his head at the question that still hadn't been answered.
"I can't quite see how my father's bloody affairs connect to a child in silk clothes."
"Nor can I. I've never run into that one myself. Though a merchant friend of mine from another region did once give me a gift in thanks. Said he came across a child in silk clothes and nearly helped, and only survived thanks to the manual."
"Oh. He didn't tell you the details?"
"Hard to make out what he was saying. He was scared out of his wits."
"I see......."
Feeling interest and unease rise in him at once, Yeon So-wol read further into the <Xinxing Peril-Avoidance Manual>.
Three.
Never cause a disturbance at the Azure Cloud Pavilion. If by mistake you earn the grudge of a server or a courtesan, you must apologize and make suitable amends.
If you have failed to do so, then from the moment you leave the pleasure house you must never be alone.
Be sure to stay in a group, do not sleep, and remain awake through the night with friends or family.
As soon as the next day dawns, return to the Azure Cloud Pavilion, apologize and make amends, and dissolve the grudge.
Four.
If, on the road through Cheonro Mountain, you spot a person sitting blankly among the grass doing nothing at all, turn back the way you came at once.
However great the loss, do not linger over it; you must flee.
If you do not, the next one sitting there may be you.
Five.
If you see three young men on a street in Xinxing County, and the one in the middle is scowling while another is grinning away, never meet the eyes of the last one.
If your eyes do meet, lower your head at once, keep to the side of the road, turn your face as far toward the wall as you can, and pass slowly.
It is best to avoid conspicuous dress, so that they will not remember you.
Six.
Now and then you will see rice cakes or sweets laid out neatly in a fine dish by the roadside. Never eat them or disturb them. On the contrary, if you add food or something precious of your own to show sincerity, some good fortune may come of it.
The more he read, the more Yeon So-wol felt as though he were sinking into a maze.
'What is this world? Are there really things like ghosts and monsters here?'
Come to think of it, in a world that had a mysterious power like martial arts, there was no rule saying ghosts and monsters couldn't exist.
'Now that I think about it, ghosts do exist. Those things that latched onto me when I fell into this place.'
Back then, beings called Ghost Kings had come into his body and been annihilated by the power of the Star of Thousand Deaths.
Thanks to that, hadn't Yeon So-wol picked up a little of the Ghost Kings' knowledge, enough to speak and write the language of this place without stumbling?
'Put that way it isn't impossible....... Still, something about it feels off.'
Yeon So-wol stared quietly down at the Xinxing Peril-Avoidance Manual.
Jo Man-seok glanced it over, then pointed a finger at one passage.
"Ah. This one's famous. This one I can explain."
What he pointed to was item five. On meeting three young men.
"This one has to do with the Xinxing Three Dogs."
"The Xinxing Three Dogs?"
"That's right. The scowling one is a fellow called the Resentful Dog, Jeon Tae-gwang, and the grinning one is a fellow called the Laughing Dog, So Cheong. And the one you mustn't meet eyes with is the Mad Dog."
"They're people?"
"Martial artists."
"Ah......."
"A thoroughly rotten lot. The one they call the Mad Dog especially has a foul reputation. It's not just one or two out-of-town merchants who are thought to have run afoul of him and been killed."
"What? And he still hasn't been caught?"
"There's no real evidence. Only suspicion. And on top of that, the Resentful Dog, Jeon Tae-gwang, who runs with him, is the youngest disciple of the Severing Sword Sect's Sect Master, and the one called the Laughing Dog, So Cheong, is a Captain of the White Dragon Gang. Neither the authorities nor the Murim can easily lay a hand on them."
"That's......."
"That's why I'm giving you this manual. Of course, you won't have to avoid them at all costs the way we do. But at the very least, you'll know in advance when a moment calls for care in how you conduct yourself."
"That's true enough."
Hearing him out, it really was a helpful set of secrets.
"Thank you."
Yeon So-wol bowed deeply.
Some of the entries looked like genuine ghost stories, but there were plenty of others that could be read as involving martial artists. And if that was so, surely the odds of running into them were high.
Living in Xinxing County as a martial artist himself.
'Didn't think I'd run into them this fast, though.'
On his way home from Jo Man-seok's shop, Yeon So-wol looked at the faces of the three men up ahead and clicked his tongue inwardly.
The street, noisy with murmuring only moments before, went dead quiet. Everyone was watching those three men out of the corners of their eyes.
The 'moment that calls for careful conduct' Jo Man-seok had spoken of had arrived at once.
The closer he came to them, the more a sour smell of sweat seeped in, along with a damp reek of liquor and something like a faint tang of blood. Tearing down the boundary of that sweet, sharp scent he had made from myrrh and spikenard.
'The one in the middle's scowling. One of them's grinning. And the last one....... That's him, then? The one you're not supposed to meet eyes with.'
A man spitting on the ground as if none of it interested him. He was reasonably tall, with a thin nose and thin lips.
The man the merchants of Xinxing County took for a serial killer, the man who had become a ghost story in his own right.
The Mad Dog.
'Careful conduct.......'
Chewing the thought over, Yeon So-wol stared straight at him. Drawing closer and closer. The whole way. Boring into him.
"......?"
Noticing the gaze, he looked back at Yeon So-wol.
Straight on.
Neither of them looked away.
"This little shit....... Those eyeballs."
The Mad Dog's face flushed a furious red.