Changing Little By Little

The sparring grew fiercer as the day wore on toward evening. Watching the tournament, I found myself quietly impressed. The unorthodox sects’ rising talents were of a higher caliber than I had expected. Nobody worth my particular notice had turned up yet, but once the chaff had been sifted out, the genuine articles would likely start showing themselves from tomorrow. I was looking forward to it a little.

When I mentioned that the slash-and-burn farmers were coming, every one of my companions wanted to come along to Hwaryeong Village, so we went down there without leaving a single person behind.

“When did you go and arrange a whole village for the slash-and-burn farmers to live in?”

“It is a place I came upon while I was looking over the village we are to live in ourselves.”

Cheong Yo followed after me, impressed at how well I had prepared.

Mak Ji-mong was watching the sparring matches, and when the scholar took his party out of the Guest Pavilion, he grumbled.

“Unbelievable. Treats the place like his own house, that one, his own house. Comes and goes as easy as you please.”

At that, one of the followers fawning at his side put in a quiet suggestion.

“Young Sect Leader. Those fellows have gone outside. Shall we teach them a lesson?”

Mak Ji-mong looked at him and answered on reflex.

“Right. Now that is a fine idea.”

“I shall carry it out at…”

At Mak Ji-mong’s beckoning finger, the follower stepped closer.

“Have you some particular instruction for me?”

— Whack!

Mak Ji-mong’s fist struck the bridge of the follower’s nose.

“You little bastard! It is my father’s sixtieth-birthday feast, and where do you think you are, trying to make a shambles of it! That bastard may not be to my liking, but he is my father’s guest!”

“I-I am sorry!”

The follower clutched a hand over their nose and bowed and scraped.

“Think of something that does me some good, is what I am telling you!”

The follower stared at Mak Ji-mong, unable to make any sense of him. The Young Sect Leader was happiest of all when he was doing somebody harm, and never once had the follower seen him flare up like this. And had he not spent these several days racking his brains over how to give that scholar fellow the fright of his life?

“You, you little bastard, get out of my sight! Let me catch sight of you any time soon and you will be the one to die first, you understand!”

“I-I understand!”

Once the follower had bolted out of sight, Mak Ji-mong let his temper settle. Then a doubt came over him. At first, when the follower proposed doing Scholar Cheon some harm, he had thought it a fine notion; then, all at once, he had begun to feel sick. He had even felt a murderous urge toward the man for suggesting it.

Why am I like this? Do I feel some scrap of affection for that scholar fellow? I do?

Something about his own words and conduct just now felt strangely out of joint.

Right. It is probably because some part of me means to hold myself in check, since there must be no trouble at Father’s sixtieth-birthday feast. Look at that. I am a dutiful son in my own way after all.

Mak Ji-mong nodded, having talked himself round.

I was there to meet the slash-and-burn farmers as they came into Hwaryeong Village.

“You have had a hard journey of it.”

The Geumcheon Escort Agency had carried the farmers and their household goods by cart, so they had arrived sooner than the date I had reckoned on. Any way I looked at it, the arrangement had been made out of consideration for me. The farmers were an even mix of men and women, old and young, and on foot the journey would have taken them more than a fortnight. Cart after cart, dozens of them, rolled into the village in a line.

The village headman came up to me.

“To send us armed escorts as well… Truly, thank you. I do not know how we are ever to repay this kindness.”

The headman went down on his knees before me as though to make a full bow.

“Please do not do this.”

When I helped him up, every one of the slash-and-burn farmers prostrated themselves toward me.

“Ahh. Now really.”

The headman looked round at them.

“This was not at my bidding. Every one of them is showing Scholar Cheon the gratitude that has welled up out of his own heart. It was our lot never to know when we might starve to death. And now, thanks to Scholar Cheon, we have land, and can feed our wives and children. How should we not be grateful?”

I had been a Murim Alliance scholar on a meager enough salary, but even so I had never gone hungry. And here were people fighting for their lives to get one meal a day. To them my goodwill must have been a lifeline, quite literally. The thought that one simple piece of goodwill had saved so many lives left me quietly pleased with myself.

“The people left this village long ago, and it fell to abandoned houses. There was talk of ghosts walking here, so every one of them went. But not long since, I dealt with those ghosts myself.”

None of it was true, of course, but I laid it out in advance for the farmers’ sake. If somebody told them later that the land was haunted, they might well pack up and leave.

“It makes no difference to us if ghosts do walk. Sooner live alongside a ghost than starve to death and turn into a hungry ghost ourselves.”

Somebody shouted it out, and the whole crowd broke into a great clamor of laughter.

“I have settled the matter already, so there will be no ghosts walking. And the houses will be parceled out according to the size of each family. I cannot give a man living alone a house with three or four rooms in it. I ask your understanding on that.”

“There is nobody here who would complain of Scholar’s decision. We know very well that to do so would be the blackest ingratitude.”

The headman threw in his agreement in a deliberately loud voice, in case any such farmer should appear.

“I would ask the three escorts to assign the people their houses according to the number in each family.”

Namgung Cheol-ung, Namgung Hwa-jun and Namgung Pyo did as I asked, parceling the houses out to the farmers on a graded scale by the size of each household.

“And these houses are not private property. Every one of them belongs to the village in common. So I would have you know that they may be assigned afresh as the makeup of a family changes.”

I gave notice of it in advance, since the houses were exactly the sort of thing a quarrel could break out over later.

“We understand.”

One of the able-bodied men asked.

“Where is the farmland?”

The farmers cared a great deal about the land they were to live off.

“Do you see the land stretching away behind the village there?”

“Yes. It has been a long while since I saw farmland with a horizon on it.”

“You will farm this land. The land will be parceled out equally to all of you. You will be tenant farmers, true, but the rent goes to the village’s common running costs, so a tenth is all you need pay.”

A tenth was as good as handing the land over for nothing. Rents in these days ran from five tenths at the least to seven at the most.

“Do you mean it?”

“I am the owner of this land. It is the owner of the land who promises it.”

At that some of the women wept, close to sobbing outright. These people had taken to slash-and-burn farming because, once the rent was paid, there was as often as not no grain left to feed a family, and so they had made their homes in the mountains instead. Most of them had had even the little land they held taken from them by the powerful local families.

“Come now, come now, we must have our houses assigned and cleaned before the day is out. Let us be quick about it.”

At the headman’s urging they all bowed to me from the waist and set busily to work.

Cheong Yo described the sight to Song-ran.

“Master Scholar Cheon is a truly precious man. He knows how to gather up even the lowest of people. What manner of person could do such a thing? Seeing the slash-and-burn farmers so happy makes me glad as well.”

“Sister Cheong Yo, does seeing the slash-and-burn farmers make you think of your family?”

Cheong Yo gave a lonely smile.

“Just so. I have no idea whether any of them are alive or dead. We were parted in the middle of an upheaval. But I have family here as well. Ran.”

“And for me, Sister Cheong Yo is my family.”

Cheong Yo stroked Song-ran’s hair, then turned to me.

“The thought of having got a house and land seems to have put strength into every one of them. It was none of my doing, but seeing them laugh so brightly makes me truly glad.”

I took Yeo-seol’s hand.

“There is a saying, is there not, that a happy family is but an earlier heaven¹. Seeing heaven, one’s heart grows warm.”

“Brother. We’re a heaven too, then.”

I looked at Yeo-seol and grinned.

“Of course. We’re a happy family, after all.”

“Hehehe. Does that make me an angel in heaven, then?”

“Probably?”

When I played along, Yeo-seol broke into a wide smile. Her body might be shooting up, but some part of her mind was still as guileless as a small child’s.

Cheong Yo asked.

“Is there a house for us to stay in as well?”

“Of course. Do you see the two-story house over there? The place in front of it is where Yeo-seol and I are to live, and the two-story house itself is where Miss Cheong and Miss Song are to stay.”

“How could I live in a house bigger than Master Scholar Cheon’s?”

“It is space for the people who will come later to learn the qin from Miss Cheong.”

“Thank you for your consideration. When are we to move here?”

“I shall set people to cleaning the place we are to live in.”

“Brother, are we going to live in that house together too?”

“Of course. We’ll live together until Yeo-seol gets her memory back.”

At that Yeo-seol flinched a little.

“Really?”

“Of course we will. Once your memory comes back, do you suppose you’ll want to go on living with this Brother of yours?”

“Huh? That’s not true.”

“Hahaha, just you wait. When your memory comes back you’ll throw a fit about not wanting to live with me.”

I said it deliberately loudly, for the others to hear, but Yeo-seol looked to be shrinking into herself. I stroked her hair.

“You rascal. You may live with me as long as you want to live with me.”

Yeo-seol caught the hand that was stroking her hair, and giggled.

When the scholar’s whole party had left the Hyeoncheon Sect, Myeong U-jong brought along the one escort warrior still able to walk and followed them out. Then he watched the scholar parcel out houses and land to the slash-and-burn farmers with nothing asked in return, and a quiet satisfaction settled over his face.

“Is that not the true likeness of a scholar? That one who has should give to one who has not. Was ever a thing so beautiful as this?”

“It is a sight I have never seen in all my life.”

“Ho ho ho! Watching it, this official is truly put to shame, and truly grateful. It makes me search myself, whether I ever so much as thought of slash-and-burn farmers as the common people. Well? Do you still think my decision was hasty?”

“No. It was an excellent choice. I have seen a great many officials, but the officials who worked for the common people in earnest were no more than one or two. Had that scholar become an official, he would have made a truly fine incorruptible officer of the state.²”

At his escort warrior’s words Myeong U-jong could not help but agree, for he too had never met a scholar like that before.

“Do you know what the word for an official truly means?”

“How should this subordinate know such a thing?”

“When we speak of a man in office, out of all the many characters there are we call him a gwallyo, and for the second of the two we use ryo, the character that means a colleague.³ Why should that be?”

Myeong U-jong had not wanted an answer, and went straight on.

“Ryo is written with the man radical beside it, and it means bright, like firewood burning in a brazier, a sort of cauldron set on feet. I hold that an official ought to be, character for character, the firewood that lights the brazier’s fire. But the officials of this present age do not go into the brazier themselves. They put the innocent common people in and set the fire going.”

Myeong U-jong let out a sigh.

“I do not move for the common people’s sake in earnest either. My going to Poyang County as Investigating Censor had for its purpose the investigation of a friend’s disappearance. And yet, looking at Scholar Cheon, I find myself ashamed.”

“Not so. The Investigating Censor is an official of noble character.”

Myeong U-jong looked at the happy slash-and-burn farmers and sank into thought.

“That the Shadow Master should appear before me unbidden. What is it?”

When the Shadow Master, the captain who guarded him at close quarters, came into view, Mak Yeo-heun’s curiosity stirred.

“Scholar Cheon took his party out of our sect, so my men followed after them.”

“This seat told you not to keep watch on him.”

Irritation and a faint anger came through in his tone.

“It was not keeping watch. Scholar Cheon’s party was leaving our sect, and my men went to look into it, wondering what the matter might be.”

“Is that so? And?”

“It turns out he has brought slash-and-burn farmers onto the land my lord granted him. Some two hundred of them in all, and he has assigned them houses in the ghost village, there in the Ghost Domain.”

“In the Ghost Domain? They say ghosts walk there. What has he done about that?”

“By what is said, Scholar Cheon stated with his own mouth that he had dealt with the ghosts.”

“Hm. An interesting fellow. It could well be a lie, could it not? The thing has been going on more than a year or two.”

“Whether his word is true or not, time will tell.”

“So why have you told me this?”

The Shadow Master grinned.

“Why, I told my lord of it because my lord takes an interest. There is no particular meaning in it.”

“I see. He brings slash-and-burn farmers onto his own land and settles them there, does he? Good. I had thought the place would go to ruin, with everyone gone from it. He is certainly no ordinary fellow. There is a pleasure in watching him. Do not keep watch on him. Simply look on, and tell me if anything amusing happens.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“What is the hellion up to? He is not going about picking quarrels with Scholar Cheon for no reason, is he?”

The Shadow Master shook their head.

“This subordinate was worried about that as well, but somehow, as the days go by, he behaves as though he had given up his interest in Scholar Cheon.”

“Probably he means to keep to it for now, since this seat has spoken. Whoever else you leave be, keep a close watch on that one. There is no knowing what he may do.”

“I understand.”

Once the Shadow Master had vanished, Mak Yeo-heun turned his steps back to the training room. He had reached the Transformation Realm, but he was not yet satisfied.