NTH 86

“Whew, this is tiring. How can an old man walk so fast? Let’s rest for a bit before we go on.”

The young man in shabby clothes, who had spoken in a sullen voice, wiped the sweat from his forehead. The white-bearded old man, who had been walking a few steps ahead of him, turned around and retorted.

“The sun sets quickly in the mountains, so we must hurry before it gets dark. Why are you, a young person, so frail?”

“I’d have the energy to do anything if I’d eaten something. But is there really a place for me to work in these remote mountains?”

“If not, why would I have gone to the trouble of bringing a lowborn person like you here? If you’re tired, go get a gourdful of mineral water from up ahead.”

The shabbily dressed man, chided for being lowborn, grumbled as he followed the old man, ceaselessly climbing the narrow and rugged mountain path. Although the weather was chilly with winter approaching, he was wearing a thin, unlined garment and old straw shoes on his bare feet.

His body, sturdy and solid from a life of manual labor, and his sun-tanned, copper-colored skin made him look quite manly. But as he himself had said, he hadn’t eaten properly, and his face was caked with destitution.

He originally lived by wandering from place to place without a fixed residence, barely making ends meet by selling his labor. But winter was the off-season for farming, so there were more days when he couldn’t find work.

That very morning, he had gone to a rich man’s house in the village to beg for food and a job, only to be turned away at the gate. He was fuming by himself, spitting on the ground in front of the main gate—spit. Just then, an old man who looked wealthy and high-ranking at a glance appeared before him.

“By the looks of it, you have nowhere to go.”

“Mister, do you have anything to eat?”

“Rather than wander around starving, why don’t you follow me and try being a servant? I say this because you look like you’d be a good worker.”

“Yes? A servant? Me?”

“That’s right. If you become a servant to the high-ranking person I serve, I can give you regular meals, a room to sleep in, and even a salary. What do you say? Will you follow me?”

It was a bit suspicious that someone would suddenly appear and offer him a good job. However, the man, who had been starving for several days, was in no position to be picky. A room with a roof to block the wind and rain, and a salary, were secondary—he was offering him food. How could he possibly refuse an offer to sustain his life?

It also seemed unlikely that such a genteel-looking old man would sell a commoner like him into human trafficking. Even if he were to be sold, he thought it would be better than his current situation. Without a second thought, the man immediately followed the old man.

To think they would hire a servant as filthy as himself. The man imagined that the person this old man served must be an incredible millionaire living in a palace-like house. But the old man gradually left the village and began leading him deep into the high, rugged mountains.

His suspicion toward the old man began to grow. Unable to shake his doubts, he decided to hide when the old man was walking ahead and then quickly make his way back down the mountain. Just as the man was looking for the right moment, the old man suddenly stopped and cried out in a surprised voice.

“Well, if it isn’t Sonyeong! Why have you come all the way out here alone? It’s dangerous.”

The man quickly raised his head. A person dressed in fine jade-colored silk clothes was standing there. Smooth, white skin and a face with neat and sharp features. An indescribably beautiful and graceful appearance.

Could he be a sage who serves a mountain spirit deep in these mountains? The man wore a bewildered expression.

“You brought him here after all. I was so worried.”

The beautiful person spoke in a clear voice, sounding bitter. The old man, after clearing his throat a couple of times, answered.

“In the end, is it not for the greater good? It is getting cold, so let us hurry up.”

The old man, with an uncomfortable expression, walked past the beautiful person and entered the narrow path. The beautiful person turned his gaze to the man who was standing there blankly.

“It must have been a lot of trouble for you to come to this remote place. My name is Sonyeong.”

“Everyone just calls me ‘Meoru’.”

“You must like wild grapes.”

“That’s right. Mountain grapes don’t have an owner, so whenever they’re ripe, I can eat until my stomach bursts. Haha!”

As Meoru laughed heartily by himself, Sonyeong merely stared at him with a blank expression. Feeling awkward, Meoru stopped laughing and spoke sheepishly.

“By the way, that old man from before, he’s not a con artist, is he? He told me if I followed him, he’d give me a servant’s job at a rich house, and then he brought me to a mountain valley like this. I was just about to head back down, thinking I’d been tricked. Is there really a rich house up there?”

At Meoru’s question, Sonyeong elegantly nodded his head.

“It is not a house, but there is a residence where a high-ranking person is staying. It was originally a temple, but a separate building was constructed in preparation for a long recuperation.”

“Recuperation? You mean that high-ranking person is sick or something?”

“Yes. He has been frail since birth, so we brought him to a place with fresh air and few people.”

Only then did Meoru feel at ease, and a loud noise, like a drum, rumbled from his stomach. Sonyeong furrowed his lovely eyebrows slightly.

“You must be very hungry, my apologies. Please hurry up and have your evening meal. It is temple food, but it is quite delicious.”

At the mention of dinner, Meoru felt a surge of energy he didn’t have before.

He diligently followed Sonyeong and finally reached their destination. A large temple was built on a wide, flat area, making it hard to believe it was deep in the mountains. There were not only a Buddha hall but also quarters for the monks and servants.

“If you go in here, the workers will get you your evening meal. It’s late today, so please rest in your room right after you eat.”

“Are there a lot of workers?”

“Excluding the monks, there are about twenty.”

“Good heavens! There are that many servants in a quiet temple like this?”

Sonyeong gave a slight nod and was about to turn away, but Meoru quickly called out to stop him.

“Ms. Sonyeong! No, you were a man. So, uh, what was it, Sonyeong…, young man?”

At Meoru’s ridiculous words, Sonyeong shot him a coy glare.

“Just call me Sonyeong.”

“Alright. Then Sonyeong, I have a question. What kind of work will I be doing here from now on? Just looking at it, it seems like there’s so little to do it would be boring, and you said there are already twenty servants.”

At Meoru’s question, Sonyeong looked somewhat distressed.

“Since you don’t know much about this place yet, you will be assigned to menial tasks for now. Drawing water, tending to the chickens, sweeping the yard, and chopping firewood.”

“That’s a relief, since I can do those things with my eyes closed. I was scared you were going to tell me to shave my head and chant Buddhist prayers or something.”

Sonyeong, who had been staring blankly at Meoru grinning broadly, spoke with a dark expression.

“If something happens here that is difficult for you to bear, I hope you will not be too distressed. I will do my best, whatever it takes. Please, just endure it for a while.”

The words were completely incomprehensible.

Meoru did not take his eyes off Sonyeong’s slender back as it receded into the distance, until he had completely disappeared.

Meoru received clean, thick new clothes and shoes and began living in the quarters where the servants stayed. Three meals a day were provided, albeit with humble side dishes. He was also provided a decent place to sleep, though it was a bit small. Meoru could ask for nothing more.

There was no one at the temple as young as Meoru. The monks and servants were all advanced in age. There was certainly no one who seemed to be around the same age as Sonyeong, who looked younger than Meoru. There were no women either. Perhaps because it was such a remote place, even those who did the kitchen work were all men.

The other servants didn’t haze or ostracize Meoru. But they didn’t treat him warmly either. They would often gather together, glancing at Meoru and whispering among themselves. Then, if Meoru got close, they would fall silent and scatter somewhere. Regardless of what they did, Meoru, who had always been alone since birth, didn’t pay them much mind.

Just as Sonyeong had said, Meoru was only given trivial tasks like drawing water, tending to the chickens, and sweeping the yard. Having gotten to eat his fill as much as he wanted, Meoru was brimming with energy. So, he would finish his easy assigned tasks early and chop firewood every day. Chopping hundreds of logs wasn’t tiring at all.

When he still had time to spare, Meoru would wander all over the spacious temple grounds in search of Sonyeong. For several days after coming to the temple, he had not seen Sonyeong. No matter how much he snooped around and looked, there was no sign of Sonyeong.

While entering the large chicken coop to clean up chicken droppings and give the chickens feed and water, while sweeping up the fallen leaves that annoyingly piled up again no matter how many times he swept them away with a bamboo broom, while throwing off his shirt and showing off the firm minor muscles of his upper body to the chickens as he split logs into firewood with an axe, he thought of Sonyeong out of habit.

The graceful and elegant Sonyeong possessed a beauty incomparable to anyone Meoru had met in his life. He felt like a person from a completely different world. He was even confused, wondering if the time he had met and spoken with him had all been a dream.

“Where in the world are you hiding? I want to see your face and also tell you that I’ve gotten very used to life here.”

Meoru muttered to himself and kicked idly at an innocent pebble. But Sonyeong still did not show himself.

One day, while Meoru was twisting straw into rope as a pastime, a servant with a gruff voice called out to him.

“Hey, kid over there! Come over here and have a snack.”

At the word “snack,” Meoru threw down what he was holding and quickly followed the servant. Three other servants had a bonfire going and were eating steaming hot roasted sweet potatoes.

Meoru quickly sat down among them. As he blew on a bright yellow sweet potato and hastily put it in his mouth, the servant who had called him over asked.

“So, how did a young person like you end up in a remote place like this?”

With his pronunciation muffled by the hot sweet potato filling his mouth, Meoru replied.

“What does age have to do with being a servant? I came here to earn money because they said they’d give me food and a salary if I worked here.”

“Shouldn’t a young man want to live in a bustling town? This place is full of nothing but bald monks or swarthy men who have nothing left to do but get old, so you must be hungry for women too.”

“Hmph. For a beggar who has a hard time eating even one meal every two days, am I hungry for food or hungry for women? As long as I could put an end to my life as a beggar, I would’ve followed even if it were to the territory of barbarians worse than this mountain valley. I’m an orphan with no home or temple anyway.”

“Why was a guy with perfectly good limbs like you living as a beggar instead of working?”

“What am I supposed to do when there are strangely no jobs in every town I go to? I’m just annoyingly unlucky all the time. Getting a servant position here is the first good thing that’s ever happened to me in my life.”

Among the servants who had been listening silently to their conversation, a man called ‘Jeombaegi’ because of a large mole on his face opened his eyes wide at Meoru’s words.

“If you have that much bad luck, you should have asked Mr. Gukbok to write you a talisman or something.”

Meoru blinked and looked at him.

“Gukbok? What’s that?”

“What an ignorant fool. It refers to the person who tells fortunes for the king in the palace.”

“There’s someone like that here in a temple like this? What for?”

“Wow. This guy, he really doesn’t know anything.”

Jeombaegi lowered his voice as much as possible and whispered.

“You know there’s a separate building over there that you’re not supposed to go near, right?”

“I know.”

“Then do you know who is staying inside it?”

“I don’t. I wasn’t interested either.”

“Good grief. His Highness the Crown Prince is there. The son of this country’s king.”

“Yes? Really? Then the high-ranking person who is so frail he’s recuperating is His Highness the Crown Prince?”

“That’s right. And to attend to him, the Grand Tutor and Mr. Gukbok came down from the capital with him.”

Suddenly remembering the white-bearded old man who had brought him here, Meoru slapped his knee.

“Ah! I think I know who that Gukbok person is!”

“You do? You’ve met Mr. Gukbok?”

“I think it’s the person who brought me here. His hair and beard were white like a mountain spirit, and his skin was all shiny, probably from eating nothing but meat at the temple. He was an old man, but he walked incredibly fast, too.”

“You fool, what are you talking about? The only person here like the one you described is the Grand Tutor, who is the Crown Prince’s guardian.”

“Huh? Then what kind of person is the Gukbok?”

“Anyone who has seen Mr. Gukbok can never forget that face. Because he is as lovely as if he were not of this world.”