TBML 23

Yeon looked up at the sky. Snowflakes were drifting down from the ashen clouds. The snow, which would be pure white once it touched the ground, appeared like ash rising from a hearth, backlit by the pale sky.

The snowflakes, tossed here and there like buoys caught in a rough sea, melted away the instant they settled on the decayed leaves. The cold wasn’t deep yet, and more snow melted than stayed. In this village, where winter always came earlier and stayed longer than elsewhere, deep snow was nothing unusual once it started to fall. Still, this year’s first snowfall felt far too early.

It didn’t seem like much would fall, so after giving the sky a quick glance, Yeon grabbed a tree whose leaves had long since vanished, leaving behind only bare branches, and climbed a tall rock. His ankle throbbed faintly when he applied pressure to it.

The physician had said there was no issue anymore, but whether it was just in his head or the diagnosis had been carelessly given, pain still flared when he strained it wrong. Having started his climb past noon and with the season’s early dusk approaching, he had to move quickly. Since Yeon planned to camp out, he needed to cover as much ground as possible before the snow soaked the earth, and find a dry spot to rest.

Naturally, the mountains at night were dangerous. Normally, Yeon avoided staying out overnight—he always had a reason to return home on time. But this time, he had no choice. Time was short, and he couldn’t afford to waste it traveling back and forth between the village and the mountains.

The truth was, he didn’t have it in him to return home and sit through the night by his sick mother’s side. He didn’t want to face the reality that death was drawing near, that he would soon be left alone in this world.

As a kind of grim joke, he had once shown Du-soe the emergency stash he’d wrapped up in a cloth and hidden under the eaves of their thatched roof, telling him that if he died in the mountains and never returned, to please use it for his mother’s funeral. But Du-soe was someone Yeon had come to trust deeply over time.

Even Du-soe’s mother, who disapproved of Du-soe coming and going from Yeon’s house, might grumble and sigh—but if something really happened, she would end up helping out out of sheer affection.

Yeon bit down hard on his teeth. It may have started as a joke, but before such a thing came true, he had to catch something—be it a mountain spirit or a tiger—something worth money, and bring it back.

He began sharpening all his dulled senses—smell, hearing, sight. Every sense he had, he honed to its edge, searching for the traces of a beast preparing for winter in the mountains, now shadowed by winter’s creeping touch.

When the scent of winter brushed the tip of his nose, an odd calm settled over him. Who was that coward who once clutched a dead deer and wept in a mountain soaked with autumn rain? Now, Yeon’s gaze as he stared toward the distant mountains was cold and still, like a midwinter sky.

Crackle. Crackle.

Having ventured deep into the mountain in search of prey, Yeon eventually returned to a faint path. It was a mountain road used by peddlers. Since he hadn’t found a proper place to spend the night, he’d made his way back to where there were at least traces of people.

He gathered dry branches he had prepared earlier and lit a small fire. Hugging his bow to his chest, he sat down beside it. He’d only had a bit of water from a spring, but he wasn’t hungry. His entire body was wound tight with alertness—so much so that thirst, hunger, and even the urge to relieve himself, all those things one should naturally feel as a human, had been pushed aside.

After resting for a bit and once visibility improved, he planned to move again. For now, Yeon went over the information he’d gathered that day, neatly arranging it in his mind. He had come close to the area where he’d previously been attacked by a leopard, but there were no traces of it now.

Instead, what he found everywhere were traces of the black tiger he’d rather avoid. The markings had been left in plain sight, as if deliberately, as if saying, “Here I am—come get me,” and Yeon’s expression hardened.

He tried to ignore those brazen signs, as if pretending not to see something shouting, “Come catch me!” Whether it was a leopard or a tiger, they were both tigers to him in the end. But in terms of size and the signs left behind, it was far more advantageous for Yeon to catch the black tiger.

Rather than wandering endlessly through this vast, treacherous mountain in search of a leopard that left no trace, it was faster and easier to follow the black tiger’s obvious tracks. From the footprints left here and there, it seemed that the black tiger had grown into a full adult worthy of being called a great tiger.

Even at a glance, the leopard—at best mid-sized—wouldn’t fetch as much as that. And although leopard pelts were more valuable than tiger hides, this wasn’t just any tiger. It was a rare black tiger pelt. That alone would make it valuable either way.

His head told him to track the black tiger, but his heart pointed toward the leopard, whose whereabouts were unknown. On his way here, he’d even come across an abandoned Jeongchang—a trap made by digging a deep pit and planting spears inside it. Such traps were usually used to obtain hides meant for tribute. But strangely, this one had only the pit dug, with no spears set and no effort made to cover it up again.

It was close to where the black tiger had passed, and Yeon thought maybe he could put that unfinished trap to use. He’d seen before how the tiger had gotten caught in a tiger snare, and though large in size, it still seemed young—still untrained by its mother and rather clumsy with traps. And yet, his heart wasn’t in it.

Was he really in any position to be picky about warm or cold food? This wasn’t the time to be choosy, and yet, he couldn’t shake the image of that tiger—he had saved its life once or twice, and now it kept surfacing in his mind. There was no guarantee he could catch it, and even if he did come face-to-face with it, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull the trigger easily. Even if he succeeded, peace of mind was out of the question.

It wasn’t as if he’d never felt guilt while hunting before, but this time, the weight of it was different. That’s why Yeon had deliberately ignored the black tiger’s tracks and come all the way here. Cruelly enough, the leopard seemed to have left this area entirely—no matter how hard he looked, there was not a single trace of it to be found.

Yeon recalled the last image of his mother that remained in his mind. Though the physician had charged an enormous fee, he had treated high-ranking officials in Hanyang, and sure enough, the medicine and acupuncture he administered had visibly brightened her complexion.

It didn’t change the fact that she was still dying—but to Yeon, who had to face that lifeless face day after day, even the smallest shift felt monumental. That final face he’d seen, when entrusting her to Du-soe, had looked just a little more at ease. And so, Yeon whispered to himself again and again, like casting a spell—there’s still time.

‘Just one more day. Let’s look for just one more day.’

Just one more day—that was the time Yeon decided to give the black tiger. Just one more day for the vanished leopard’s trail to show itself again, and for the black tiger—who had been leaving tracks as if to follow him—to suddenly change its mind and disappear somewhere far beyond reach.

It was a foolish thought, but when one was already wishing for a dying mother to somehow recover, what wish could possibly be too absurd?

Between the hoots of owls, he could hear the occasional caw of a crow. Strangely, the mountain tonight didn’t feel frightening. After surviving one brush with death, it seemed his courage had grown too large for his body.

As he passed the night indulging in empty thoughts, a face long buried in memory floated to the surface. A young noble he had once met in the rain-drenched mountains—his features now faded with time. In moments like this, Yeon found himself imagining how nice it would be if that boy emerged from the forest like he had back then, and repaid the favor by tossing him a heavy pouch of sangpyeong tongbo coins. These pointless thoughts trailed one after another.

Where had that young lord gone? He had been human, clearly, and yet vanished like a ghost. The memory he had momentarily forgotten stirred again, and Yeon found himself wondering if the boy was living well somewhere.

Crack.

A burning branch split with a snap, sending embers scattering to the side. Yeon tamped them down with damp twigs to keep the fire from spreading, letting his aimless thoughts burn along with them. He knew well enough that these meaningless musings were simply a way to escape the present.

He let time pass with only the cries of owls and insects for company. When the sky finally lightened, just before sunrise, the world around him felt even darker than it had in the dead of night. It was always darkest before dawn.

Rising to his feet, Yeon shoveled dirt over the small fire, now reduced to embers. The dying coals were buried in dust, snuffing out like a life drained of breath.

He wrinkled his nose at the acrid smoke and, slowly, began walking deeper into the mountain.

“Huff… huff…”

Breathing heavily with nerves and exhaustion, Yeon leaned over a stream and looked at his reflection in the water. A haggard face stared back at him—dirt-streaked, eyes wide with desperation as though the world itself were collapsing.

Disgusted by what he saw, Yeon dipped his hand into the still water and stirred it, distorting the image. His reflection rippled and warped, his fingertips stinging with cold.

He scooped the frigid water and splashed his face again and again. His vow to search just one more day had dragged on, and before he knew it, he had wandered the mountains for two more days beyond that. Today marked the fourth day since he had left his home, entrusting his mother to Du-soe.

He no longer had time to spare, and even the words he had repeated to himself like a chant had lost their power. Yes—at this point, Yeon was undeniably desperate.

But cruelly, the situation kept pulling him in the opposite direction from where his heart pointed. He had scoured the mountains for two sleepless nights and days, yet not a single trace of the leopard had turned up.

Had the leopard taken offense at being hunted and left the area altogether? No matter how he searched, it was nowhere to be seen. And yet, black tufts of fur, as if within reach, kept turning up around him. Every clue screamed one thing: Hunt the black tiger.

The abandoned jeongchang trap, the oddly persistent traces of the black tiger circling him—it all made his head swim. If he did it right, maybe he could lure the black tiger into the pit trap. It would be much safer than facing it head-on with a matchlock.

Now, there was nowhere left for Yeon to retreat. No—he was already far too late. If he were to descend the mountain now, Du-soe might already be waiting to tell him that his mother had passed.

Still, he clung to a faint hope that that moment hadn’t come yet. It was time to make a decision—to choose the path that lay clearly before his eyes.

Yeon’s gaze darkened as that choice settled into him like a stone.