TL/ED – Miso
Eun-yeong was an assassin.
Three years ago or thereabouts, she had received her orders and come to Xinxing County.
She was not to be deployed at once; her instructions were to wait until the next order came.
But the operation fell apart before it ever began, and the middle handler who was supposed to hand Eun-yeong her next order ended up a cold corpse.
The higher-ups cut off the tail and restructured the organization.
Eun-yeong was forgotten.
"......."
She endured it in silence.
Once she had spent every last piece of the silver she'd been issued for mission expenses, she slept in the open and simply went hungry.The rule was that until she set out on a kill she was to do nothing that might leave a trail, so no matter how starved she got, she never stole and never robbed.
"......."
Day by day she wasted away.
She could draw up water from a well and gulp it down, and her stomach would empty again in no time.
"......."
Thud.
Wandering the streets of Xinxing County with no purpose at all, Eun-yeong finally collapsed.
Her body was cold and her vision was going dim. As shadows crept slowly across the world,
"Hey! Child! Are you all right?"
the courtesan Cho-ran came bursting, all at once, into her life.
"That's exactly how it happened. This kid, lying at the side of the road like a kitten caught in the rain....... Oh, Young master. Try this one too. The pride of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, tea-steeped fried chicken. Chicken fried in oil, soaked through in a cold sauce with tea leaves mixed in, so it's cool and sweet. And chewy. Here now, ahh-"
"I, I'll feed myself."
How had it come to this?
Yeon So-wol found the way things were going nothing short of dizzying.
They'd asked what had brought him here, and all he'd done was answer that he'd been chased in by the Xinxing Three Dogs and a pack of Black Path thugs.
At that, for whatever reason, the courtesans' response had been blazing.
"Those sons of bitches are still living like that?"
"Black Path scum, the lot of them."
"It's the same here, isn't it? Any time you get a customer who seems like a real piece of work, he turns out to be Black Path."
"Right. Right."
A denunciation rally against the Black Path, convened on the spot.
Even to Yeon So-wol's ears, one story after another was appalling.
The trouble they made inside the Azure Cloud Pavilion was the mild end of it.
Since the Azure Cloud Pavilion itself was a business run by the most successful Black Path gang in Xinxing County, other Black Path men at least minded their step here.
As for the outrages they committed outside, well, how to put it. A great deal of it went past simple brutality into something squalid, shabby, even contemptible.
"They walk into a house in mourning. Shove a forged loan note in your face and insist your parents owed them money. And if you can't pay it, they make a scene about taking the body instead."
How could anyone do such a thing!
"They gather up trusting kids off the street and squeeze money out of them by promising to teach them martial arts. Then they don't teach them a thing, just work them to the bone with errands and chores and thieving, and throw them away when they're done. Complain and they beat you."
They do that to children?
"Loan-sharking at ridiculous interest, that's just the baseline."
Textbook stuff, really.
"And from what I hear, there are still ones who kidnap people and sell them off quietly to the farms and big landowners out that way."
How could anyone do that to another human being!
Yeon So-wol thought.
'They really are gangsters and street trash.'
He had generally taken every Jianghu practitioner for a gangster, but watching Yi Yu-baek and the Hall of Refined Arts had changed that view somewhat.
Of course, he did have his suspicions about why the Hall of Refined Arts had so much money.
There was no way that merely teaching martial arts could make anyone that wealthy.
As far as he could tell, they collected protection money from the surrounding area, which, to Yeon So-wol's mind, made them not so very different from an organized crime outfit.
That, however, was the view by 21st century standards.
By now Yeon So-wol had come to believe it firmly.
That Yi Yu-baek and the people of the Hall of Refined Arts had standards, whatever else was true, and that they plainly hated what was evil. That if anything they were good, and certainly not wicked.
The stories he was hearing now, by contrast, were the sort that made a person's brow furrow.
Tales of men with no sense of principle and no sense of shame.
'So this is what the Black Path is.'
Yeon So-wol listened to the courtesans, chiming in without even meaning to.
"Really....... How can there be men like that? Would they only understand what they'd done if it were done to them?"
"And believe it or not, that's a huge improvement. The ones who crossed the line really badly, Great hero Yi Yu-baek cut them all down."
"Did he?"
"Yes. Everyone in Xinxing County owes your father a debt, Young master Yeon. They don't call him a Great hero for nothing."
"I see. Thank you. That's one more thing I've learned."
It was then.
That the mood turned strange.
"......?"
All five courtesans had stopped talking and were staring straight at Yeon So-wol. The expert called Eun-yeong seemed not to care in the least, gazing only out the window.
"Is something the matter?"
The moment Yeon So-wol swallowed nervously, the courtesans erupted all together.
"Sister! Sister! Have you ever seen the like? A Young master who actually listens like this?"
"I know. Heavens. How can a person be that pretty?"
"We can't just sit here. Let's bring out the drinks!"
"Yes. Yes. Talk like this calls for something to eat."
"I'll go get it!"
"......?"
While Yeon So-wol was still going uh, uh, the drinking table was laid. Fragrant dishes, liquor,
"This one's on us. All you have to do is eat, Young master."
"This. Try this one. Ahh-"
"I, I'll do it myself."
"Goodness. How adorable."
Yeon So-wol could not for the life of him understand why they were behaving like this. All he'd done was listen and chime in a little?
Cho-ran said with a smile.
"Some people get paid for telling an entertaining story, but for the likes of us, it's the listening that costs dear. They're precious, you see. People who take what we say seriously."
The remarkable sociability and sensitivity Yeon So-wol had been born with.
And on top of that, the power of attentive listening, so emphasized in 21st century education!
Yeon So-wol, born and raised in a world of equals.
Yeon So-wol, not yet stained by the world.
He didn't look down on them for being women, or for being courtesans; he treated them carefully, listened deeply to what they said, nodded along, and chimed in.
He'd done it all without much thought, and by 21st century standards it was only the sort of conduct that would make someone think, what an agreeable young man?, but
in the courtesans' eyes, every last bit of it shone.
It was a bearing and a spirit a thousand years ahead of its time.
In an instant, they came to cherish this young gentleman. Enough to bring out, without hesitation, the stories they'd kept buried in their hearts for years.
"Same for me. Me too. My parents couldn't repay what they owed the Golden Powder Gang, so I was sold here at eight years old."
"I actually came from a farming village. I don't know where....... I was five, playing in our yard, and some men came in and stuffed me straight into a sack and carried me off. I cried and cried, and when I came to my senses I was here. That's all there is to it."
"Me? I was just born here. If your mother's a courtesan, the daughter's a courtesan too, right? Sniff. I miss my mom."
"Mine was about the same. My parents were slaves. Seven, I think I was. The master sold me to the Golden Powder Gang. And the pleasure house the Golden Powder Gang runs was this one. Nothing much to it, is there?"
"......."
Yeon So-wol was stunned.
Testimony to crime after crime, pouring out, and all the injustice in it.
Hearing it a moment ago as someone else's story, and hearing it as something the people right in front of him had lived through, felt entirely different.
Perhaps because the tremor in their voices, and the feeling that soaked through it, reached him so vividly.
Yeon So-wol stole a glance at Eun-yeong. Still blank-faced, she was plucking food off the table and popping it into her mouth, bite after bite.
'It's laughable for me to say something like this with an expert like that sitting right here, but.......'
In the end he couldn't hold it in, and asked.
"It may not be my place to ask this. But even so. Is there any help you need?"
To be here through no will of their own, only because of the station they'd been born into, or because they'd been seized, or sold, wouldn't that feel bitterly unjust and suffocating?
Presuming to guess at another person's circumstances could be a rude thing, but Yeon So-wol asked anyway.
If there was something to be done,
if he was able to do it,
he wanted to help.
The way Yi Yu-baek had taken up his blade.
......Not that he could fight anything like that well.
Still. Even something small.
"Oh my?"
Cho-ran's eyes went round.
A bashful smile welled up on her face. When she turned to look, every one of the other courtesans was wearing the same bashful smile. Only Eun-yeong sat apart, picking up another meatball.
"Do you know something, Young master? That's the first time we've ever heard that."
Heard what? Was she saying it was the first time anyone had offered to help?
"Oh, we've heard offers of help plenty of times. I'm such and such a man, getting one girl out is nothing to me. I'll make right what was done to you. But not like that. 'Is there any help you need?' You're the first person who ever asked us what we thought first, Young master."
"......."
"Everyone else simply assumes we must need help. And why wouldn't they. Low-born wenches rolling about like playthings for men. What a pitiful sight."
Cho-ran went on, her words almost a song.
She was uncommonly loved and respected among the other courtesans, so they all listened quietly to her, nodding along in agreement.
"But sometimes I think this. It's only a matter of degree; isn't life hard for everybody? Unless you were born the beloved child of some great official's house and get to enjoy his power."
The farmer in a farmer's way.
The day laborer in a day laborer's way.
Wasn't everyone in this world getting by with difficulty?
Hating it, and living it all the same?
"But nobody walks up to a farmer or a day laborer out of the blue and asks, do you need help?"
Cho-ran smiled bashfully.
"Of course I hate it here. Four years old, I was. Some man tricked me with a promise of candied fruit, and twenty years have already gone by. I can't even remember my mother's and father's faces. But still. Even so. Me, I know my place. If I got out of here now, what could I possibly do?"
All she had learned in her whole life was
singing, dancing, composing poems, and charming men.
"Does anyone out there pay you for dancing and singing and flirting? In here, at least, I'm a courtesan who pulls her weight. I can eat delicious food like this to my heart's content. Out there, I'd just be a fool. So what's to be done? You shoulder it and you live. Telling yourself, I suppose there are lives like this too."
Having said that much, she stuck out her red tongue a little.
"Though naturally, if some rich man turned up and offered to save me, I'd be off with him in a heartbeat."
At that, the other courtesans, who had been agreeing with her all the while, raised an uproar.
"Would you listen to her? She's lying."
"Right. This from the girl who kept refusing Great lord Wang no matter how he begged her to marry him?"
"Nooo. I keep telling you, Great lord Wang would throw me out the moment he tired of me."
"Sure he would. Do you know how his whole face brightens the second he sees you?"
"It'd still be life as a concubine!"
"Isn't life as a concubine better than life as a courtesan, though?"
"How would you know, Sister? Have you ever been one?"
"No idea. But it'd have to be better, wouldn't it?"
"Ugh. Enough of that."
Cho-ran stroked Eun-yeong's hair. Rocking under the hand, Eun-yeong was tucking a neat bite of tea-steeped fried chicken into her mouth and chewing it thoroughly.
"I've told you. When I retire, I'm going to live with Eun-yeong. Build ourselves one cozy little house."
Yeon So-wol looked at them.
Something hard to explain surged up and struck him in the chest.
So very different from the 21st century,
the lives and the thinking of the people here.
Just then, there was a stir at the door.
"Ahem. Er....... Is Eun-yeong in there?"
The voice of an aging man.
Cho-ran's eyebrows shot up.
"That old fool, I swear......!"
When she rose to her feet, huffing, the other courtesans tried to talk her down.
"Cho-ran. Easy now, easy."
"Don't just start screaming at him. All right?"
"She's right, Cho-ran. They bend for you now because you're so popular, but there's no telling when that might turn around."
Cho-ran half listened to their worrying and went out the door.
A moment later came the sound of screaming.
"No! No! I said no! Eun-yeong doesn't work! How many times do I have to say it?! I raised that girl out of my own monthly wages, you know that? You put her to work, just once? No, you so much as open your mouth about it?! Then the Pavilion Master dies and I die too. Understood? I've still got a score to settle with the man who lured me here promising candied fruit, and I mean to settle it!"
The aging voice floundered and stammered, then receded into the distance.
Soon Cho-ran came back in. She looked at Yeon So-wol and gave an awkward smile.
Just then, Eun-yeong, who had been quiet the whole time, said flatly,
"I. Could do it, though?"
"What?"
"The work you do, Sister."
"Have you lost your mind?"
"It's work you do. So I don't mind."
Smack!
Cho-ran struck Eun-yeong across the back.
Hard enough to rattle the paper on the doors.
"You say that one more time and no supper for you."
"Ugh......."
Eun-yeong pouted and turned her head away.
Yeon So-wol noticed the small smile forming at the corner of her mouth.
"Honestly. This girl."
Cho-ran glared at her for a while, then shifted her gaze to Yeon So-wol.
"Anyway, thanks to you, Young master, I feel much lighter today. Got to say everything I wanted to say. Hm. I'd like to give you something in return......."
Cho-ran thought it over carefully, then let out an ah! and spoke.
"This would be good. Go and tell Great hero Yi Yu-baek. On the eighth day of the fourth month, the Governor-General of Liangguang will offer prayers at Guo'en Temple and then take a pleasure boat out on the Jicheng River. They're conscripting labor on an enormous scale. Ten thousand floating lanterns. Ten thousand sky lanterns. And they'll be setting off iron flowers in the grandest style too, from the sound of it. Since it's the procession of the Governor-General who oversees both Guangdong and Guangxi, the County Magistrate of Xinxing is trembling in his boots, and even the Guangdong provincial administration has stepped in and is pouring effort into it." [TL: The eighth day of the fourth lunar month is the Buddha's birthday, a major Buddhist holiday.]
Yeon So-wol pictured it.
A dark night. The Jicheng River.
Floating lanterns drifting upon it. Sky lanterns rising into the air. Iron flowers, molten metal flung out to burst like fireworks.
A world starved for spectacle.
His heart pounded.
He badly wanted to see it.
"Which is exactly why they're putting the common people under a strict ban. Go in or out and you'll be punished severely, they say. And this time an order is coming down that singles out martial artists in particular, forbidding them to go anywhere near it. This. Let Great hero Yi Yu-baek know in advance."
Yeon So-wol's face fell.
'How rotten and petty can they be.......'
Something that fine, and only the high and mighty get to see it? While making the common people do all the preparing?
In the 21st century it would have caused an uproar, but this was precisely what a society of rigid rank meant.
"Yes. Understood. I'll be sure to pass it on."
Yeon So-wol answered that way for the moment, though inwardly he was puzzled.
'But why bring this news to Father......? Is it just a warning to be careful?'
As Yeon So-wol tilted his head, Cho-ran added something more.
"Oh. And. I heard a rumor that Seo Mu-ryang, Gang Leader of the Golden Powder Gang, is in secret contact with Cheonro Mountain. Well. You may already know. In this Xinxing County, the only one who could pull something that insane anymore is Seo Mu-ryang, the man they now call Foremost of the Black Path in Xinxing....... In any case, that as well. Pass it along."
"......Yes."
Yeon So-wol felt his blood cool a little.
In secret contact with Cheonro Mountain, of all places.
"Hmm. And what else is there? Now that I think about it, none of that was actually for you....... It was all for Great hero Yi Yu-baek. What is there. Something worth giving to our Young master."
Cho-ran sank into thought.
The other courtesans fell into thought as well, each in her own way.
Yeon So-wol was a little flustered at the sight of them suddenly trying to shower him with things.
Just as he was wondering whether he ought to stop them,
"There is one."
Eun-yeong, who hadn't joined the conversation at all and had only been chewing away beside them, spoke up out of nowhere.
"There is?"
"Mm."
"What is it?"
"Martial arts."
"Huh?"
Cho-ran tilted her head, and Eun-yeong jabbed a finger toward Yeon So-wol as she said,
"I. Can teach him."
"Teach him what?"
"How to walk quietly. How to notice someone walking quietly. He doesn't know much. I could tell earlier."
"Oh my?"
Cho-ran stole a glance at Yeon So-wol's face.
She'd known Eun-yeong had that sort of talent....... but it was very much the kind of thing only a thief would use.
He was the Adopted son of Yi Yu-baek, famous for his love of Confucius and Mencius, and so it gave her pause.
A gentleman does not tread the side paths, or so they said.......
"Hm. But whether Young master Yeon would want to learn it......."
It was right then.
Flap!
Yeon So-wol straightened the folds of his robe.
He squared his posture as though he'd come to sit an interview.
Bowing his head low, all but shouting.
"I absolutely! Want to learn!"