As Prophet - Chapter 3
Only Noblemtl
Episode 3. Dalcheon
“I don’t know that child’s hometown either. I greeted the Sanin in Taebaek when I went there, and he was a pretty good child. The Sanin asked me to take care of the child before he went on his journey. He said he would take care of the child when he was alone. So I went there, and he packed his bags and left as if he had been waiting for me. I don’t know anything about the child’s hometown, his family, or his relatives. There is no place to pass on the will.”
“We’ve been together for quite some time, haven’t we?”
“It’s like you don’t know.”
“Then what should we do?”
The master touched the floor with his hand.
“He’s missing, but he’s not dead. We haven’t found his body.”
“Yes, but how long can you endure in that cold sea water?”
The master asked again. He seemed to think that there was no way he could have died.
“You said they couldn’t find the body.”
“They say they mobilized the nearby government troops and searched the water for three days.”
“She’s missing. She’s not a child who would die easily.”
“Master, why do you have such strong faith in that child?”
“Is that worth it?”
“yes?”
“In fact, his martial arts and internal energy have already surpassed the level of entering a god. Even I cannot estimate the level of that child.”
“Higher than Master?”
“Yes. No being on earth can harm that child.”
“Why do you say such outrageous things?”
“It’s true.”
The master grabbed the shoulder of the monk who was floating like a bird soaked in rain.
“It will come back in time. Don’t worry too much. There will be a reason. It will come back. Don’t think of it as dead.”
The spleen explained the whole story of what had happened with the Segok ship. The old transport ship had to be used by the boatman, the guy kept delaying the schedule until spring, the guy who had praised the Segok as the best quality when loading it lied during interrogation that he had offered old grain, and he did not try to salvage the grain from the sinking ship. He could not bring himself to say that Yun Gaedongi had killed him.
The teacher returned the spleen without saying a word and escorted him down to the prose.
“I’ll be back. Don’t worry too much. If the child had died, I would have felt something, but I didn’t feel anything coming.”
“It happened hundreds of miles away.”
“We are the sages who study.”
He saw me off with a big smile, thinking that he had answered my question with an unanswered question.
* * *
When I returned to the headquarters without any income, the officers were sitting there with grimaces on their faces.
“Any other news?”
“doesn’t exist.”
“In Hanyang… … .”
“It is clear that we must harvest the three grains again.”
“Phew.”
The officer who answered bowed his head. He was a young man selected from among the young men of this county. His family will also be burdened. He has to pay taxes that he has already paid… … . Something is wrong. Even though he feels it is wrong, he has no choice but to do it. That is the reality.
“What happened to the dead?”
“It’s not enough, but I sent condolence money, expressed my deepest condolences, and helped with the funeral. But does that mean the dead person will come back?”
“Yes, but even so, Your Majesty, you are amazing.”
“You seem to think it’s all your fault. From the part where you couldn’t use the transport ship until now.”
“Why is that the fault of the magistrate Nari?”
“But you think it’s your fault because someone else has to pay for the three songs.”
“What about the missing Dalcheon?”
“I stopped by the main temple, but they said he probably didn’t die. They couldn’t even tell him the news of his death. So I came down empty-handed.”
“There must have been something wrong on the ship. Do they die just because it sank? They’re flying and crawling soldiers? And Dalcheon is strong. He won’t die easily.”
“I suspect this was a man-made disaster, but what the child had to face must have been the cold sea water.”
“Your internal energy is deep. You wouldn’t have died easily. We agree with the opinion of Master Bijang Nari.”
“But why can’t I see it? It must have floated away in the sea.”
Once you decide on one thing, you can’t think of other possibilities. You can fall into the trap of deciding on one thing that is not certain and waiting for it to happen, even though there are several options. And it’s very emotional. Instead of analyzing the situation and coming up with the best alternative, you end up blindly hanging on to one answer that you just came up with.
Time passes again without end. I have done everything I could. When they say, “Do your best and leave the rest to fate,” I have done everything a person can do. Suddenly, I remembered what a crazy person said as he passed by. Then, have you ever really wanted something so earnestly?
I hate presumptuous questions that place conditions on people’s choices, but today, I wanted to pray.
* * *
Was it raining again? The veiled Baek-ui-hyeong stopped walking toward the sponsorship. He was there.
“Priest!”
“Spleen Nari.”
He was standing at the entrance to the Bijangcheong yard, looking exactly as he had when he left, but a little disheveled.
“Dalcheon-ah!”
Baek Yi-hyung shouted and ran out to hug the guy. The officers inside the barracks rushed out and surrounded the two.
“You survived!”
“What happened?”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
I was pushed into the Bijangcheong by those surrounding Dalcheon. As they wiped my face, which was wet from the rain, with a towel, my cheeks were revealed like a white full moon.
“You’re doing fine, Dalcheon!”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you go to the Dragon Palace?”
“I think so.”
“What? Dragon Palace? This guy!”
“I was pushed endlessly. As I waded through the water, I saw a yellow, golden path in the sea. I thought I was hallucinating, but I had no other choice, so I went toward it. The water rose to my chest and I was freezing, but I had no trouble moving. However, when I got closer, my feet touched the ground. It was new land.”
“What, then? What about that yellow road?”
“I thought it was a path that would lead to death. But I decided to go anyway, and suddenly my feet touched the ground. I couldn’t stand up, so I crawled on the water and moved forward. And then again, the path appeared underwater. It looked like a dragon palace, but it was the light of civilization that tempted people. It was bright and tempting, like the lights of a city that suddenly appeared after wandering in the darkness of the mountains all night.”
“So you went?”
“Once your feet are on the ground, why are you going?”
“What kind of land is that… … .”
“It was a woman who was half-submerged in water. It was the kind of place that would be submerged during high tide and exposed during low tide. I looked back, but it had already drifted far away, and I couldn’t see the boat or the land.”
“But how did you live?”
“I waited on the rock for the darkness to pass. When dawn came and the surroundings became clear, I saw water all around me, and a dark shadow was reflected far beyond the horizon. I thought it was a mirage. I thought I was lost in the West Sea and should go east, but there was only water and nothing to see. I wondered whether I should believe what I saw or geography, but the answer was obvious.”
The spleen cried out.
“We have to go east!”
“No. The current was flowing west. I grabbed hold of a piece of wood floating down the current and headed toward the black island. Do you know? Could that be Samshinsan?”
The word Samshinsan made Bijang burst out in laughter. Even though he was a young man who valued very rational and empirical reasoning, he sometimes seemed to lack faith in such legends. When Yeo Dongbin said something, he thought it was true, and when Samcheon Gapja Dongbangsak said something, he believed it as it was. However, it was not that he had no sense of reality. He enjoyed using empirical reasoning and was very good at developing logic. It was unique that legends, myths, and reality wrapped his life into a meaningful whole.
To him, Samsinsan was something that could exist in reality. He believed that it was not something that did not exist, but something that we were too foolish to see, feel, or go to. He thought it was natural to call it Samsinsan, since it was something he found while wandering in the sea after being lost on a sinking ship.
“So you headed towards Samshinsan?”
“I thought that being obedient and not being rebellious was the way to survive, and that was where the shadow of the island came from.”
“Anyway, that’s why you’re saying you headed west.”
“Yes.”
“so?”
“We passed a place where the whirlpool was swirling violently.”
“Didn’t you fall into it?”
“Yes. With the help of the gods of heaven and earth, I was able to avoid it.”
“That gentleman is a busy man, but it seems he had time to chase after you and help you.”
“What are you talking about? No matter how many people there are, the net of heaven is wide and wide, and nothing is missed.”
“It’s the first time someone has interpreted Cheonmanghoehoe in that way.”
In the reality that he had returned alive, the spleen immediately returned to its usual state. It was a sense of duty to properly teach the thoughtless priest who dreamed of vain things. Even if there was a mountain called Samshinsan and he had seen it, it was not a topic to talk about here. There was no need to talk about the lost Segok and the more difficult reality of the countermeasures. Life here was more difficult, harsh, and unbearable. What was the difference between asking someone who was carrying something heavy to play with me? I quickly picked it up, thinking that the conversation had strayed because I had asked for nothing.
“First of all, I’m glad you came back safely. I was on my way back from stopping by the main office today to report this.”
“What does the teacher say?”
“You won’t die… … He said that if you’re missing, you’re not dead, just unknown, so don’t take any action. He must have great trust in you.”
“I have a high level of trust. Hahahaha.”
“Are you sure there are no other injuries?”
“It’s okay. One side of my face was cold for a while, but it’s okay now.”
“I hope you don’t say anything like that Samshinsan Mountain. Just say that you drifted to a deserted island and barely survived.”
“why?”
“It’s too difficult a reality to endure with such dreamy nonsense. I also have to pay taxes.”
Dalcheon’s eyes sparkled at the word Segok.
“You know! Did you sink it on purpose?”
“He’s saying no.”
“There’s a guy down there called Dolsoe… … He was making a fuss in the junk.”
“He died too.”
“A stone ship? Oh, then does that mean he sank it and killed it?”
“What did Dolsoe do?”
“They started a fire in the stove where they cooked rice in the stern. As the fire spread, they broke the bowstring to make the fire bigger. I told them not to… … Those guys’ soldiers were all in the same group. They rushed in all at once. They didn’t kill most of them, but drowned them. When the stern began to sink, there was nothing they could do. The sailors and soldiers left the ship… … Ahem. One of them used a sword and resisted to the end.”
“Did you kill him?”
“no.”
“An officer died.”
“He is he.”
Everyone gathered in the secret office flinched at the mention of the military officer. The military officer belongs to the secret office. Sparks could fly.
“You didn’t kill them? One person died.”
“I think there was some internal strife among us.”
“What about Yoon Gaedongi?”
“You act well.”
I tilted my head. If Dalcheon could handle many people on his own, then why did he go missing?
“But why did you become a loser?”
“I got it wrong. I was trying to chase after a guy who was running away and I got caught in a rapid current on the water. It was strange. There was a whirlpool and people were sucked in. I don’t know what it was, but it seemed like there was a big monster in the water playing tricks on me. When I finally got out, I saw the vast ocean.”
“swirl?”
The spleen bowed its head. That is also not realistic. A context that cannot be explained to others can be seen as false. There must be a plausible probability that can be accepted.
“Just wait a moment.”
The spleen headed to the county office.