TL/ED – Miso
The streets of Xinxing County overflowed with all sorts of stories.
So-and-so beat up so-and-so. There was a fire somewhere. So-and-so and so-and-so were caught in adultery.
From incidents and scandals like these,
What does the County Magistrate even do? What is the imperial court good for? Isn't this outrageous?
all the way to political and current affairs.
Lately one new topic had been added to those streets of Xinxing County.
Still small and trivial, but a topic worth bringing up once in a while when there was nothing else to say.
"You know. That Yeon So-wol."
"Who?""Yeon So-wol. The woodcutter from Annam."
"Ah....... You mean that idiot?"
"Hm? Why do you call him an idiot?"
"Coughing up a full thirty taels of gold to learn martial arts at his age? That's idiotic."
"What are you talking about? If he ever reaches a real level, he'll make it back and then some. He'd gain a skill that earns him respect for the rest of his life....... and you'd have him hold on to his thirty taels of gold?"
"Oh please. You've got thirty taels of gold, do you? Then what are you standing around for? Go on, take your thirty and knock on his door."
"Ahem. Hmph. I'm poor, I've got no money. And no talent for martial arts either."
"And that young man does?"
"He must, or why would he hand over a full thirty taels?"
"Good grief. Honestly. Listen here. Fine. Even if he does have talent, it makes no sense. Every other hall member at the Hall of Refined Arts pays three taels of silver and joins as a disciple at ten, fifteen years old, and he alone walks in with thirty taels of gold? Does that sound right to you?"
"They only pay three taels of silver?"
"Only? Only three taels of silver? Are you rich or something?"
"No....... that's not what I meant. It's just, martial arts are such a tremendous thing."
"Are all martial arts tremendous? It's only tremendous if you learn it to the level of the Three Young masters of Refined Arts, Yi Yu-baek's direct disciples, at least. Most of the rest never even learn three taels of silver's worth before they're done. And that's starting young. You think a young man nearly twenty can manage it? You've got a head on your shoulders, use it. Eh?"
"......."
"And this Yeon So-wol is far too old on top of that. Ten more years of training and he might barely be called a Third-rate martial artist. To be called Second-rate he might need thirty more years. He'll never hold three taels of gold in his life, let alone thirty. So he's the biggest fool under heaven."
"......Still, that's too harsh. Talking that way about a young man who came all this way with a dream in his heart. From what I hear he's very well-mannered, an educated sort."
"Educated or not, he's a stupid, smelly barbarian. I'm only stating facts. Facts. No, wait. Can he even survive Yi Yu-baek's teaching in the first place? I hear Yi Yu-baek's teaching is brutal."
"Come on. Why do you talk like you know everything? You don't know this Yeon So-wol either. He must have his own reasons for doing it."
"Like hell. He's just an idiot. You think idiots are in short supply in this world? This market alone is crawling with fellows that make you wonder how they even manage to feed themselves. I guarantee you, that one will run off before even a month's up. He threw thirty taels of gold straight onto the ground. He should've just given it to me."
"......."
"Honestly, that Yi Yu-baek went too far as well. Money's money, but how do you just gobble it up like that? This is exactly why you can't trust Jianghu practitioners. Great hero, my foot."
At some point, as the abuse kept piling on, a man who had been buying fish cakes nearby cut into the conversation.
"Talking about Yeon So-wol? The one from Annam?"
"That's right. Why?"
"You've got it wrong."
"What?!"
The man's face twisted into a scowl, and the middle-aged man eating the fish cakes said flatly.
"I heard it from a fellow who hauls firewood into the Hall of Refined Arts. This Yeon So-wol killed three Third-rate martial artists last night. On his own."
"Nonsense! Does that make any sense? I heard he doesn't know a lick of martial arts!"
"It's true, they say. Great hero Yi Yu-baek went off to see the County Magistrate first thing this morning with a bottle of wine to smooth it over. If you don't believe me, go check for yourself."
"Huh......."
The sharp-tongued man made a thick, choked sound, as if lost for words.
At that, the man who had been quietly taking Yeon So-wol's side grumbled loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Good grief. All that big talk like he knew everything. What was it? Ten years before he'd barely be Third-rate? And the man's already killed three of them. Ha. Really. These market types are something else. Spreading rumors. Like they know a thing. Ugh."
"......."
The sharp-tongued man dropped his head and slipped away.
The man eating the fish cakes watched him go, snickering.
"So even fellows like that manage to feed themselves, huh?"
Yeon So-wol ate breakfast and paid his morning respects to Yi Yu-baek.
When Yi Yu-baek asked whether there was anything he wanted to know, he asked cautiously.
"I killed men yesterday. Won't the magistrate's office come looking for me?"
By the common sense of the 21st century, that was only natural.
Kill three people inside a perfectly ordinary city and of course there would be an investigation.
In the Republic of Korea it would have meant prison for mutual assault and negligent homicide, or murder.
But Yi Yu-baek answered as if it were nothing.
"Here in the Central Plains, we have a saying called mutual non-interference between officials and the murim."
"......Officials and the murim don't encroach on each other. The murim's power must be tremendous."
Yeon So-wol was deeply startled.
The vague image that surfaced in his head was the American frontier era.
Back then, too, people had dueled and shot each other dead, and businessmen had supposedly shot at one another over selling stock.
But,
'Even so. Killing people is simply allowed, even in a city like this? Just for being a martial artist?'
Not having to answer for it was all well and good, but a corner of his mind stayed uneasy.
If what Yi Yu-baek said was true, didn't it mean this was a world where thugs with blades, untouched by the law, ran wild as they pleased?
'Is that allowed? This world. Is it really fine like this?'
Seeing the complicated look on Yeon So-wol's face, Yi Yu-baek answered with a placid smile.
"That's right. So today I'll go see the County Magistrate, treat him to some good wine, and offer up a tael or so of the gold I received from you. Then everything's fine."
"......."
Yeon So-wol asked back only inwardly.
'Excuse me?'
Wining and dining him and handing over gold to make it go away?
'Then isn't that not mutual non-interference between officials and the murim, but rather collusion between officials and the murim?'
Yi Yu-baek said.
"If you mean to live as a Jianghu practitioner yourself, remember this well. 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 have to know when to push back and when to grovel. Take it to heart. That movement art you say you want to learn sits on the very same thread."
The teaching of Great hero Yi Yu-baek, foremost expert of Xinxing, carried a profound mystery in it. Yeon So-wol was deeply impressed.
'So a Jianghu practitioner is the sort of thug who keeps a line running to the politicians.'
Yeon So-wol asked on impulse.
"Hall Master. Then what is the Jianghu? Who is a Jianghu practitioner?"
Yi Yu-baek answered.
"Those who live within their station in a country built on law, we call the common people. Those who follow the rivers and lakes and live wherever their heart reaches, we call Jianghu practitioners."
Yeon So-wol nodded.
'Just as I thought. They're thugs.'
And he realized one more thing.
'So even if I fail now, getting the gold ingots refunded is going to be hard.......'
As the price of not going to prison it might even be cheap. Still, it left a bitter taste.
Yeon So-wol steeled his resolve anew.
'This place is backward and filthy. It even has a class system. I can't live an ordinary life somewhere like this. Not only is simply living here awful, there's far too much danger.'
So what was he to do?
'A thug who can live half-ignoring the class system. Which is to say, I have to live the life of a Jianghu practitioner. Thugs though they are, people don't think so badly of them. Hall Master Yi Yu-baek even seems to be respected around here. Yes. I have to live like that too. With an estate of my own, safely. Recognized by those around me. Cleanly. Burning sweet incense, too.'
And to do that.
'Elder Jo Man-seok said it would take at least three to five years to become a Third-rate martial artist, if I have talent. Then let's call it exactly three. I'll consider myself dead already, grind myself to the bone, and become a Third-rate warrior within three years, no matter what. After that I take the Great Restoration Pill and head out to a bigger city. And look for proper instruction there. I'd have to be called First-rate at the very least to live the way Hall Master Yi Yu-baek does.'
He had made his goal clear.
And he had braced himself.
'No matter how much it hurts. I hold out to the end. I will not break. If I'm not dead, I move. Here at the Hall of Refined Arts, I become a Third-rate martial artist, and I take the Great Restoration Pill.'
And so began the second day's training.
The one thrashing him today was not Yi Yu-baek.
It was the youngest of the three disciples who were called the Three Young masters of Refined Arts and given special treatment.
His name was Mo Cheong.
He was the same age as Yeon So-wol.
He was a head and a half shorter than Yeon So-wol.
That was because Mo Cheong was on the short side even by the standards of this era, while Yeon So-wol, who had been tall even in the Republic of Korea, was enormous by the standards here.
But even so, he beat Yeon So-wol just as effortlessly as Yi Yu-baek had.
He moved so smoothly that Yeon So-wol couldn't react to all of it.
"Gah!"
Whoosh!
One dodge sent his hair flying,
CRAAACK!
and with his stance broken he couldn't block the next attack, and his skull rattled.
Crash-thud!
Watching Yeon So-wol take the hard fall, Mo Cheong tilted his head.
"What the. Why's he so good at dodging?"
Hearing that, Yeon So-wol was dumbfounded.
'Good at dodging? My bones are aching and my muscles feel like they're tearing.'
When Yeon So-wol groaned his way back to his feet, Mo Cheong looked at him with worried eyes and said,
"Hurts a lot, doesn't it? Want to take a break? When it's just us we usually take it easy, you know. Me and my senior brothers all did. Besides, the master's been itching to make this afternoon harder than yesterday. So rest up for now."
Mo Cheong meant it.
The way he saw it, Yeon So-wol had taken far, far too much of a beating yesterday.
Yeon So-wol was strangely good at slipping attacks, and the master, delighted by it, had hit him more than he normally would.
And after all that, he'd fought a life-or-death duel with knife-wielding thieves during the night.......
Mo Cheong couldn't begin to guess at Yeon So-wol's pain and exhaustion.
And yet the master was thrilled, saying Yeon So-wol had a hidden move up his sleeve. He'd even announced that today's teaching would be harsher still.
To Mo Cheong, who knew that pain, it was nothing short of pitiful.
So he had offered sincerely. A bit of well-timed slacking was what let a man endure brutal training, after all.
But hearing those words, Yeon So-wol flinched! in alarm.
'This. This might be a trap.'
He recalled a video he'd seen on WeTube.
In the videos where people tried out special forces training, the instructors always used to say.
Ring the bell. Go ring the bell and it all gets easier, right? Ring it and take a rest. Are you an idiot? Why are you putting yourself through this?
In special forces training, ringing the bell meant quitting.
The situation was a bit different, but Yeon So-wol concluded it amounted to much the same thing.
'They might be sweet-talking me into slacking off so they can use it as an excuse to fail me later.'
That way they could swallow the gold ingots whole without teaching him much of anything.
Surely they wouldn't pull such a cheap trick, but this was a lawless world, the Jianghu. Yeon So-wol did not let his guard down for a moment.
He would do nothing that could become a weakness.
He would train hard, so grueling and punishing that everyone in the world would know it.
If this was China, they'd care about face, and if they cared about face, they couldn't fail a man who had truly worked for it on some absurd pretext.
Yeon So-wol raised a body that felt ready to shatter.
Forcing his pain-twisted expression back into place.
"No. I'll keep going. Please let me keep going."
He straightened his clothes and set his stance.
He was a wretched sight, bruised and smeared with dust and grime.
Even so, as Yeon So-wol calmly stretched out his long arms and long legs and settled into his stance, there was an air about him that could only be called dignity.
'He wants to keep going? In that state?'
To Mo Cheong, who was the same age as him, the sight was tremendously striking.
Making no compromise with the world,
never deceiving himself,
a truly lofty spirit.
Unlike the ordinary people who lived out their lives in the dust,
a clear and pure vigor.
'To look up with nothing to fear before Heaven, to look down with nothing to hide from men. So that's what it meant?'
Looking up, nothing to fear before Heaven,
looking down, nothing to hide from men.
Words that Yi Yu-baek, who loved Confucius and Mencius, always used to say.
Today of all days, those words struck him as magnificent.
"......All right. Then I'll get more serious too."
Mo Cheong's eyes gleamed.
'......More serious?'
Yeon So-wol's eyes wavered.