RPPL C20

Bipa had tried to wash Muyun, but was kicked out and was now in the yard. His still-damp hair hung loose and long, as if he didn’t feel the cold at all, as he strolled through the rear garden.

He planned to leave quickly. While the others might not, Ahn Gyeomho would surely try to find out what had happened. They had drawn more attention than expected, so they couldn’t stay in this village any longer. He hated getting into troublesome situations, and he hated being the center of attention even more.

As Bipa wandered aimlessly, a branch of a peach tree caught his eye.

“This is…”

Bipa stared blankly up at the darkish branch. Just then, he sensed a presence beside him. When he turned his head, he saw the lady of the house, looking dazed as if her soul had left her.

Ahn Gyeomho’s wife, Gyeong, who had met Bipa’s eyes, staggered towards him. Bipa asked in a soft voice. Gyeong, having lost her child, seemed so fragile that she might shatter at the slightest loud noise.

“It’s a beautiful tree. When, and who, planted it?”

“My husband’s great-grandmother planted it.”

Gyeong answered in a dreamy voice, like someone talking in their sleep. She reached for a nearby branch but couldn’t touch it. So Bipa reached out instead. As he pulled the branch down, Gyeong touched the dry winter branch and murmured.

“It was said to ward off evil things… why is our Doui…”

It seemed the child’s name was Doui.

“……”

Bipa thought of the red dots left on the lady’s neck. And he also thought of the Goeigong. The creature that would be remembered simply as a wicked monster, before any right or wrong could be judged.

He took a pouch from his pocket. It was a pouch for things too precious to lose. From inside, he took out a sagak. A snake’s horn, a rare item said to help one conceive a child. He cut off a piece of the precious thing that Jangseung had found for him and gave it to Gyeong.

“On the night of the full moon, draw pure water, bow three times, and swallow this.”

“This is…”

“I cannot tell you in detail. They say your tongue will be cut out if you reveal the secrets of heaven, don’t they?”

Bipa smiled faintly and leaned his head towards Gyeong.

“The child named Doui is not gone forever.”

He whispered in a small voice, lest anyone hear. Gyeong was confused, unsure if the voice, like a passing breeze, was a dream or reality.

“A child will come to you soon, and he will be bright and healthy. A child so healthy he will fly with the wind and not burn even in the scorching sun.”

Only then did the light return to Gyeong’s eyes. Bipa broke off the branch he was holding.

“I can take this much as my fee, right?”

“Ah…”

Gyeong let out a moan behind Bipa as he turned away. Confused about whether what she had heard was real or not, she paced in place and then shouted, “Wait a moment.”

“Here, wait here.”

Gyeong ran off with staggering steps. Bipa stood still, tapping his lips with the branch.

“Master.”

Muyun, who knows how long he had been watching Bipa, called out. Muyun, his hair wet like his master’s, stood beside him and asked.

“Is that woman really going to have a child?”

“Not yet, but she will. Soon.”

“How do you know? You really are a shaman…”

“I told you I’m not. I don’t serve any god.”

Bipa cut him off at once and pointed to his own neck. He tapped it and said.

“The red dots you also saw. Those were left by the centipede monster, and it must have been quite clever, marking a new prey as a spare. As if preparing, knowing it would die someday.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying at all…”

“They say that if a centipede monster dies after leaving red dots, a family member who later conceives will give birth to a bright child…. It’s just that the couple is getting on in years, so I gave them something to help.”

“And not an evil monster being born?”

His expression showed he had no idea how a centipede’s mark could be proof of a bright and special child. Bipa fully understood Muyun’s confusion. He stroked the boy’s head with his hand, then brushed away a water droplet clinging to the end of a strand of hair.

“Because monsters are originally neither good nor evil. There’s a reason when they become evil, and the result isn’t always bad. If people hadn’t recklessly destroyed the cave, if the official hadn’t stolen the tribute, would the centipede have gone around killing people?”

“Master, you seem to be kinder to those monsters than to people.”

“Do I?”

Bipa murmured. His voice neither confirmed nor denied it, but Muyun somehow felt he had gotten a glimpse of where his master’s heart leaned more.

Muyun unknowingly took Bipa’s hand. As if to say, look at me here beside you, not at the centipede monster that is already dead and buried.

Just then, Gyeong returned. She looked precarious, running with staggering steps.

In her arms was a bundle. Panting, without even taking a moment to catch her breath, Gyeong showed Bipa what she had brought. Inside the bundle were several more pouches, and he could also see meat, dried fish jerky, and dried meat jerky wrapped in oiled paper.

“Please take this.”

“……”

“I want to repay you, even if it’s just a little.”

“This is too much. It’s not as if I kept your son from dying, nor did I bring a dead child back to life.”

“I did not expect the impossible. I am giving this because the words you gave me have become my strength to live. So please, assure me. That another child will come to me. One who resembles Doui, Doui… a child who feels like a gift from him.”

Bipa accepted the bundle. It was difficult to lie to those desperate eyes, but more than that, it wasn’t a lie, so he spoke with conviction.

“It’s true. Really. You will meet him soon.”

Gyeong’s eyes instantly grew moist. Her words, “Thank you, thank you,” were as hazy as the fading fog.

Just then, the last of the fog in the village had completely lifted. The village, nestled in the embrace of a winding river, was secluded and cozy. As if by some magic, all the sounds of wailing had also stopped. It seemed everyone had gone to the government office to witness the end of the corrupt officials. It was the right time to leave.

Bipa returned to the room and hurriedly packed his things. Then, as if he had just remembered, he handed the branch to Muyun. It was the peach tree branch he had just received.

“Carry this with you. Don’t break it.”

“What?”

Muyun took the branch with a dubious expression. He was worried about how to keep it from breaking.

“It has its use, so you mustn’t break it.”

“What if it breaks by accident?”

Muyun asked cautiously as he received the slender branch. Bipa shrugged.

“Then we’ll have to find another one just like it. But trees like this, raised with such good intentions, are not common. If you don’t want to bother your master, you’ll have to take good care of it, right?”

He was being unreasonable. Muyun swallowed a sigh and took out a pair of socks. He wrapped the branch with them. Still, the bottom part was left exposed, so he took out another pair and wrapped the bottom as well.

Bipa, who was watching, took out a spare waist tie he carried and gave it to him, and Muyun skillfully tied it so the socks wouldn’t come loose.

“This should be fine.”

“It looks fine. But don’t put it in my bundle. I’m not the most careful person…”

It was a fact he knew well, even though he hadn’t been with Bipa for long. Muyun untied his own bundle and carefully placed the sock-wrapped bundle among his clothes. He then placed it in the middle of his things and tied it up securely. Watching this, Bipa slowly rubbed the fingertips that had held the branch.

After packing all their things, the two quietly slipped out through the side gate as they had the night before. Just then, Ahn Gyeomho was entering through the main gate on the opposite side. Gyeong went up and threw her arms around him, who had missed his guests by a hair’s breadth. Ahn Gyeomho’s expression was bewildered.

Leaving the village, Muyun looked back one last time. The smell of simmering soy sauce was gone. He hoped the new official wouldn’t build a new wall or unnecessarily expand the storehouse. But that was unlikely to happen….

Bipa urged Muyun on from ahead. Muyun held his pack tightly and scurried towards Bipa. There was still a long way to go.

❀࿐

The reason they next stopped in a village was because of Muyun. Suddenly, Muyun began to groan in pain every night. If it were an illness, he could get medicine and provide the appropriate care, but it wasn’t like that. So Bipa was in a very difficult position. There was nothing he could do for him. Powerlessly.

Muyun said that every night, it felt as if someone was tying ropes to his wrists and ankles, attaching them to an ox plow, and pulling in different directions. Bipa was disgusted by the description.

“Then don’t say such horrible things.”

Though he shuddered, Bipa tore open the pillow Muyun slept on to check it. He was checking to see if he had been cursed with a hex that made one wither away from nightmares, but inside the pillow, there were no bone fragments or ominous dolls.

“I can walk. We can just go.”

Muyun, who had almost been abandoned once before because he was sick, stubbornly insisted, even as he broke out in a cold sweat. Bipa couldn’t understand Muyun’s stubbornness, but he didn’t stop him either. Because he wouldn’t listen even when told to rest.

“Do as you please.”

He had spoken coldly, but his heart wasn’t so.

Muyun hid his fear that he would become useless because he was sick, and Bipa hid his worry and concern, so their relationship was chilly for a while.

‘So stubborn.’

Bipa grumbled inwardly. As if his own stubbornness, despite having lived much longer than Muyun, in not yielding first, didn’t count as stubbornness.

In the end, after much deliberation, he found a plausible excuse to stay in a village.

“My shoes are worn out, I need to get them fixed.”

It was true; Muyun’s shoes were tattered and even too small. Muyun was growing. And quickly, at that.

And so, the master and disciple came to stay in a certain village just before the sun set.