RPPL C22

Having finished their meal, Bipa and Muyun walked in the direction the madman had gone. Before long, they were able to find him on the outskirts of the village.

Two men and a woman were holding onto the madman, but he was so strong that even with three of them, they were being pushed back. Bipa and Muyun watched the scene from a short distance away.

Bipa’s eyes glittered with a different kind of meaning. He had noticed that one of the men holding the madman had a piece of untanned, raw leather hanging from his waist. Bipa leaned over and whispered to Muyun.

“Looks like he’s the leatherworker’s son. We’re about to get ourselves some leather shoes.”

At the joyful tone in his voice, Muyun couldn’t help but give a small laugh. With a brightness so childlike and devoid of malice, his personality was one that could easily be misunderstood.

He felt he could understand why he never stayed long in villages, and even if he did, why he stayed in places far removed. That was why Muyun liked Bipa even more.

“Stop. Stop it, you brat. Deokseok!”

However, the madman, Deokseok, was present but not truly there. The spirit of the Gwisomok, toying with Deokseok’s body, was in possession of him.

“Peach tree branches are always useful.”

Bipa muttered with a cheerful air. Although they were incompatible with him personally, they were useful in various ways and came in handy if you kept them around. Just like now.

Having heard Bipa’s muttering, Muyun opened their bundle and took out the beoseonmari they carried with such care. Still keeping his eyes on the struggling group, Bipa untied the traditional socks.

“Now, your master will show you a demonstration. You stay here.”

Bipa’s appearance, rolling up his sleeves and stepping forward bravely, was honestly not very reassuring. With a reluctant expression, Muyun obeyed his master’s words. However, he did not let his guard down, intending to rush out and help him if anything happened.

“Deokseok! Oh dear, oh dear….”

“Shall I help you?”

The woman, who had been stamping her feet with her face contorted on the verge of tears, turned her head at the voice that suddenly cut in. Standing there was a person dressed in white.

The woman surveyed his slender frame and thin wrists. Her husband, Jiman, who was quite strong from his leatherworking, and his younger brother, Jiseok, couldn’t handle their son; how could this person, who looked as if his daily work consisted of nothing more than flipping through books? It felt as if he had come just to mock her misfortune. A thorny voice escaped her instinctively.

“Be on your way.”

“I will help you.”

“Aish, really. How annoying!”

“If I have been needlessly meddlesome, I will pay for my mistake. But if things work out well because I stepped in, I would like it if you would make a pair of shoes for me and that child.”

Moksun finally looked Bipa straight in the eyes. His clothes were clean but worn, and he had not a single fancy accessory. He was not of high status. Yet, there was an aura about him that made it difficult to treat him dismissively.

A sense of unease washed over her, as if he were fundamentally different from them. Cowering and losing her nerve, Moksun unwittingly nodded her head.

“Then go on and try….”

Bipa smiled brightly. Moksun’s gaze blankly followed his smile. Suddenly, she wanted to just wait and see whatever he might do.

Bipa gripped the peach branch and approached the two men who were in the middle of the struggle. The two men, unaware of the deal their wife and sister-in-law had made, had not yet grasped the situation. Besides, Bipa’s footsteps were nearly silent, so they didn’t even know he was approaching.

Bipa stood behind Deokseok. And he waited for the moment when Jiman and Jiseok would stop their crazed son and nephew’s struggling for just one instant.

When the moment he had been waiting for finally came, he, who had been holding his breath behind them, launched himself forward and drew the peach branch across Deokseok’s neck in a long line. As if slitting his throat with a knife.

At that moment, a red line appeared on Deokseok’s neck. Blood gushed from it like a fountain.

“Oh my goodness!”

Startled, Moksun collapsed to the ground. Jiseok and Jiman were also scared out of their wits, shaking all over as they scrambled away from Deokseok.

Even though he was freed from their grasp, Deokseok stood there blankly, then suddenly bent his knees and slowly collapsed to the ground. His eyes, which had been staring into the air, rolled back into his head without warning.

“Heavens, above.”

The blood that all three of them had clearly seen was nowhere to be found. Deokseok’s neck was clean, without a single wound except for the scratch mark left across it. They fumbled, patting Deokseok down. Finally, they even checked his breathing; he was definitely breathing.

“He has just fainted. He’ll wake up after sleeping for three days.”

Bipa murmured. The branch, its job done, crumbled into fine pieces and was swept away into the air by a timely gust of wind. Bipa’s hair and gaze followed it to its end. And Muyun’s gaze followed Bipa.

Muyun knew from the start that Deokseok had not bled. What looked like blood was the spirit that had been attached to the Gwisomok. And there was also a separate power that had incited that spirit.

‘But how dare they.’

Muyun glared at the departing grudgeful spirits. Each of them was grumbling towards Bipa. To say they were grumbling was an understatement. Their spite-filled voices were even grotesque.

Listening to it, Muyun wondered why Bipa didn’t just get rid of them. What if they tried to take revenge on him later?

Muyun, having packed the bundle, approached Bipa.

“Aren’t you going to eliminate them completely? What if they try to harm you later?”

“What are they going to do to me? They’re pitiful things. Just leave them be.”

When Muyun didn’t answer, Bipa turned his head. And seeing him glaring intently in the direction they had disappeared, he smiled and flicked the boy’s forehead.

“I said leave them. When you grow up, you can do as you please. For now, you are with your master, so you must follow my will.”

“Isn’t it wrong to let things like that loose?”

“They’re already sad enough to have lost their home, so you want me to go and beat them to punish them? Don’t be silly.”

“Then who will punish the one who incited them…”

Before he could continue, there was a presence behind them.

“Th-thank you.”

Moksun approached on her knees and bowed her head. Bipa explained to her in a deliberately gentle voice.

“You’ll have to watch him for three days. He’ll wake up on his own when the rooster crows on the third day.”

“Truly, how can I ever repay this kindness….”

“Oh, come now, I told you beforehand.”

He smiled, full of his ulterior motive, and pointed to the leather hanging at Jiseok’s waist.

“If possible, please make them warm. We have to get through the winter.”

With her eyes welling up with tears, Moksun stared blankly up at Bipa.

❀࿐

Two pairs of cotton-padded shoes were a cheap price to pay for saving a child’s life.

Jiman hummed a tune as he measured Bipa and Muyun’s feet, and Jiseok sang while he tanned the leather with great care. And Moksun boiled a large pot of dried radish greens, the savory smell generously filling the spaces between the melodious singing as she swayed her body.

Smelling the boiling radish greens, Bipa combed his tangled hair. His loosely tied hair had come undone and become disheveled at some point, likely from his earlier movements. Muyun watched him from the side.

Bipa tilted his head this way and that, carefully tying his hair. Yet, watching his clumsy handiwork, Muyun suddenly felt a pang of regret. When he was younger, Bipa used to do his hair for him.

No matter how neat and deft Muyun was, a child’s hands were still a child’s, and to tie his hair at the back without a mirror, he had no choice but to borrow someone else’s hands. Of course, Bipa’s skill was also hopelessly clumsy.

Even that had stopped as soon as Muyun grew old enough to tie it well by himself. He didn’t know why that suddenly felt so regrettable now.

Muyun, who had been needlessly tugging at his well-tied hair, spoke up spontaneously.

“Master. Should I cut my hair?”

“What?”

“It gets a bit tangled, and it feels like a hassle.”

The texture of Muyun’s hair was different between the lower ends and the newly growing parts. It was the difference between before and after meeting Bipa. The hair from when he had almost starved was coarse and tangled easily even when brushed.

As soon as he impulsively uttered the words, his mind was made up. He no longer wanted to recall any of the memories from that time.

Bipa, who had been blinking at Muyun’s sudden words, asked.

“Then shall we just cut a little off the ends?”

“No. Please cut it all off.”

Muyun said firmly. Bipa’s face grew bewildered. Wasn’t that too reckless? Of course, he had occasionally seen foreigners or wanderers with cut hair, but they were, in fact, foreigners and wanderers. There was no need for Muyun to cut his.

“What for…?”

“Uh, I wanted to try cutting it at least once anyway.”

Although he stammered a bit while fudging the reason, his voice was firm. He hadn’t been asking for permission in the first place. Flustered, Bipa scratched his cheek.

“I’ve never cut anyone’s hair before.”

“It’s alright.”

“Are you sure you won’t regret it?”

“If anyone asks, I’ll just say I’m a young master from the Qing and a little special.”

At that nonchalant lie, Bipa burst out laughing, “Ahaha.”

“Right. That’s not a bad idea.”

Bipa himself wasn’t the type to be hung up on such things anyway. The fact that he didn’t even wear his hair in a topknot said it all. He simply thought that if Muyun wanted it, it was best to do so. Bipa had never told Muyun he couldn’t do something he wanted to do.

Though it was true the boy rarely pestered him for anything.

However, even with the decision made, there were no scissors or knives in Bipa’s bundle of miscellaneous odds and ends. He went to the front yard where the tanning was being done. There, he found Jiseok pouring a thick decoction of medicinal herbs over the leather to remove the smell, and asked.

“Excuse me, could I possibly borrow a knife?”

“A knife?”

Jiseok blinked his eyes. At the benefactor’s sudden request, he scratched his head. Then he took out the dagger he wore at his waist and handed it over. Bipa rinsed it several times in clean water, then bowed his head with a smile and headed to the backyard.

Jiseok was left with an expression as if he had been bewitched.

“Hey, you rascal. What are you doing.”

When Jiman chided him, Jiseok came to his senses and muttered while roughly rinsing the leather.

“No, it’s just… I was thinking what a strange person he is….”

It was indeed strange that he, who was not a peddler, had come to this remote corner of the world and suddenly saved his nephew. But above all, the man himself was mysterious. The feeling of being in his presence remained, but it was especially odd that his facial features wouldn’t come to mind clearly. Only the strangely exhilarating and heart-fluttering emotion left Jiseok confused. As if he had been bewitched.