Windmill
My hometown, Seochon, was the sort of place with a plain, forgettable name and nothing much else to recommend it.
The farmland was broad enough, but the soil was poor, so the harvests were thin.
There was no breathtaking scenery worth making a special trip to see.
Even if the mountains around it were fairly high and rugged, they still could not compare to the Five Peaks.
The river that wound through the village was too narrow and shallow to float so much as a single boat.
Looking back, it was strange that more than twenty households had managed to scratch out a life in such a barren place at all.
When I returned to my hometown after just ten years, it had changed beyond recognition.
Even the road in from the main highway was different. The narrow mountain path had been widened enough for two carriages to pass side by side.
The sight at the end of that road was just as unfamiliar, and far more crowded than I remembered: tall buildings and pavilions, respectable shops lined up along the main street, roads packed with passersby and escort wagons, and even a pleasure house...
“A pleasure house? What in the world...”
I walked among the people, glancing around in bewilderment, rubbing my eyes and looking again because I was too stunned to believe what I was seeing.
No matter how many times I looked, it was a real pleasure house.
It was still daylight, so no red lanterns had been hung yet, but the ornate eight-story building was unmistakably the kind of place you would only expect in a major city.
Standing there, half dazed, I finally drifted over to a street stall nearby.
“Mind if I ask you something?”
“Ah, yes. What do you need?”
The shabby stall owner, who looked to be about forty, hurriedly lifted his head.
He gave me a quick once-over, then flinched when he noticed the sword at my waist and hastily looked away.
“This is Seochon, right?”
“That’s right.”
“When did this place get so prosperous?”
“Well, let me see. I’ve only been here three years myself, and it was already about like this then. I came because I heard you could make a living here...”
The answers I got from other stalls and shops were more or less the same.
This remote village, where it used to take at least two days on foot just to reach the nearest town with a physician, had changed into this in only ten years. If the villagers had all died in a flood or an epidemic and the place had become a ruin, I would have been less shocked than this.
No matter how I looked at it, it was impossible to believe. It felt like I was dreaming with my eyes open.
There was no trace anywhere of the hometown I had known.
Among all the passersby buying and selling and wandering about to look at the sights, I didn’t recognize a single face.
Even if I did meet someone from home, would I be able to recognize them? I had changed just as much.
The small boy who had lost his parents long ago and been dragged away by a fake relative had returned as a martial artist reeking of blood.
I was the one who should have come home in glory, and yet somehow it was the hometown itself that had prospered. That was irritating in a way I couldn’t quite shake.
*
Fortunately, the shape of the mountains and the river were still the same.
Once I left the bustling district, the familiar landscape of my memories began to reappear bit by bit.
My feet naturally carried me toward Soso noona’s place.
If the village had grown this much, maybe they were still doing well. Even if they had moved to another village, her parents would still be around.
Thinking of seeing Uncle and Aunt again made my chest swell.
No matter how much I had changed, they would welcome me warmly.
Just like they had back then, when they took in a parentless child with no hesitation at all after I lost my mother and father in the flood.
Even if Seochon was no longer the old hometown I remembered, that alone would have been enough.
My steps, quickened by anticipation, froze in front of a gate with one of its doors hanging loose.
Inside, the yard where they used to keep chickens was overrun with weeds.
The three-room house looked as though no human hand had touched it in years, broken in places and full of holes.
“Noona! Uncle! Aunt!”
I called out, but all that answered was heavy silence.
Standing before the abandoned house, I was at a loss.
In all the nightmares I had ever had, no matter how drenched in blood I was, Soso noona’s family had always been fine.
Nothing like this had ever happened. Nothing like this...
I stepped up onto the stone threshold and went inside. With my heart in my throat, I opened the door to the inner room.
There were no bodies. No severed limbs, no dried blood, no signs of a fight.
I must have been bracing myself to find Soso noona’s family dead. When I let out a breath, my shoulders sagged.
There was no bedding, no clothes, no cooking pots or bowls left behind. It looked as though they had taken everything with them when they left. Or maybe some thief had already stripped the place bare.
Sunlight spilled in through the window, where the bars and paper had fallen away.
Shhhhhh.
Drawn by the cool sound, I looked back and saw the bamboo grove on the distant rear hill swaying in the wind.
As I stared blankly at the scene, so familiar and yet so painfully dear, something suddenly flashed through my mind.
I went into the little room where I had once stayed. I opened the clothes chest, which was much smaller and more worn than I remembered, then reached up to the top shelf.
There it was.
The hair on my body stood on end, and my heart thudded hard.
I took out the small wooden box and brushed the dust away with my hand.
When I opened the lid, a fragment of memory that had been waiting in that place ever since I left surfaced exactly as it had been.
A pinwheel made by folding bamboo leaves for the blades and fastening it to bamboo with a needle.
Soso noona had made it for me so skillfully when we were all out in the bamboo grove picking bamboo shoots together.
The memory of that distant time stood vividly before my eyes as though it had happened yesterday.
When that scum of a fake relative had dragged me away helplessly, I had been too out of it to take it with me.
I had regretted that for years, and it had always rankled me, but now I was almost glad I had left it behind. If I had taken it with me then, I would probably have lost it or broken it long ago.
I held the pinwheel in my hand and blew on it. It spun a few turns, then a blade fell off.
“Damn it.”
I hurriedly picked it up and carefully fixed it back onto the bamboo.
After staring at it for a while, I put the pinwheel back into the wooden box.
My hand, clutching the box, was shaking violently.
Soso noona, Uncle, Aunt.
Where had they gone, leaving behind the house that generations had lived in? Had they abandoned their hometown like I had? Or...
I shook my head hard to clear away the foolish speculation and went back outside. I left the gate and ran along the road. I was anxious now.
The people of my hometown would know. They would know what had become of Soso noona’s family.
But when I searched the homes of villagers I remembered, not one familiar face remained.
Soso noona’s family had not been the only ones to vanish from Seochon.
The houses of other townsfolk had either been abandoned or taken over by strangers who said they had moved in years ago. Not a single house was an exception.
What had happened to the people who used to live there? Everyone just shook their heads and said they didn’t know.
Only one old man, who looked rather steady and stern, dimly remembered the matter.
“From what I heard, when a terrible famine struck, everyone sold their houses and land and left...
“A famine? Do you know where they went?”
“No idea. It was a few years before we moved in here.”
“Who did you hear that from?”
“From the broker who introduced us to this house.”
“What was the broker’s name?”
“Let me think...”
The old man frowned and tilted his head, as though trying to drag the answer out of memory.
But his eyes kept flicking toward the long blade at my waist.
He had started talking because it had been a while since he had someone to speak to, but now he seemed hesitant, worried he might stir up unnecessary trouble.
I stared at him without blinking, waiting for an answer. Unable to bear the silent pressure, the old man let out a long sigh, as though conceding defeat.
“...Was it Yeon Jinwon? Or Yeon Jinhyeon? Anyway, that’s what I heard. If you go ask around the commercial street up ahead, you should be able to find him.”
It was not unusual for a small village to vanish because of famine.
When I lost my parents to the flood, if Soso noona’s family hadn’t taken me in, I would have had to wander around as a beggar.
There was nothing strange about a whole village being swallowed by that kind of disaster.
The house we had after the flood had become a ruin overgrown with brush. The roof and walls had all been washed away, leaving only traces behind.
My parents had been hauling food from the storehouse when the mudslide took them.
Two days after the rain stopped, the villagers helped me gather their bodies and bury them in the mountain.
I was sure I had set up a small wooden gravestone, but I couldn’t find their grave anymore.
Ten years was enough time for a few floods to change the lay of the land and for a wooden marker to rot away.
After wandering through waist-high weeds for a while, I gave up and sat down on a rock.
I was wiping the sweat from my face and drinking some water when I sensed movement in the distance.
I held my breath and sharpened my attention.
Beneath the cries of birds in the trees, there was a faint, regular vibration as something struck the earth. It wasn’t an animal. It was human movement.
With my bundle on my back, I stealthily approached the source of the sound.
When I climbed over the wooded rise, I saw a group of men gathered far ahead.
All five had swords at their waists or across their backs, and they were snickering with faces that looked every bit like thugs.
I wondered if they were bandits and watched quietly. In the middle of them, I could see someone digging in the ground.
That young man’s expression was different from the others.
His face had gone ghostly pale, and he was shaking as he kept shoveling. Whenever he paused, even for a moment, the other men would threaten him fiercely and sneer at him.
I could tell what was going on.
They had probably dragged a man here to frighten him by pretending they were going to bury him alive.
I had seen that trick more than once at the gambling den, where hopeless debtors were hauled up into the mountains and given a brutal lesson in the will to live.
I was about to shake my head bitterly and step back when I paused.
It wasn’t pity or a sense of justice that stopped me.
The face of the man digging looked strangely familiar.
The ones with the swords were clearly outsiders, but for some reason that man seemed to stir a vague memory in me.
This had been a small village with barely twenty households.
If he really was a hometown resident, there was no way I wouldn’t recognize him. I stared at him hard, comparing him to the memories of ten years ago.
No matter how I tried, I couldn’t place him.
And since I didn’t particularly feel glad to see him, maybe I was mistaken. He could simply have a face that resembled someone from home.
I had no desire to step into this mess and risk my life in a sword fight just to find out who he was.
It was obvious at a glance that they had dragged him here to intimidate him. Even if they killed him and buried him, that would have nothing to do with me.
Carefully concealing my presence, I retreated the way I had come. I went back down the mountain and returned to Soso noona’s house.
There were plenty of old, damaged places, but the roof and walls were still intact. The pillars and beams were solid too.
If I repaired the broken door and windows and cleaned the place up, it would be more than enough for me to stay alone. The collapsed fence could be left as it was.
As I propped up one of the fallen door panels, I noticed a faded strip of cloth attached to it. It was tattered from wind and rain, but the writing was still legible.
“This house is the property of Jeongun Merchant Association. Unauthorized entry is prohibited. Please inquire with the association if you wish to purchase it.”
Had they really sold the house and left? I’d find out soon enough.
I tore off the strip of cloth, tucked it into my chest, turned around, and headed for the bustling district.
Avoiding the noise of the city center, I went into a quiet inn on the outskirts beside the farmland.
“Welcome!”
A young serving boy ran out from the kitchen. From the entrance, I quickly checked the inside.
It was an awkward hour for dinner, so in the large inn there were only two occupied tables.
At the one by the kitchen sat two men who looked like farmers. At the rear table by the back door, the kind of place martial artists liked, three rough-looking men were sprawled out.
I took a seat by the window farthest from the back door, where I could look out at the road.
I unfastened the long blade from the back of my waist and leaned it against the side of the chair. The serving boy came over with a teapot and cups.
“This town has changed a lot.”
“Are you from around here, sir?”
“I left when I was a kid. You born here?”
The serving boy looked about fourteen or fifteen. If he were a hometown resident, then ten years ago he would have been just a snot-nosed child, so he might not recognize me.
“No. I don’t really know where my hometown is, but I wasn’t born here. What would you like to order?”
“Got any empty rooms?”
“Of course. How many days will you be staying?”
“About two. Bring me some bathwater tonight too.”
“Yes, sir. That’ll do. Would you like to eat now?”
“A pound of boiled pork. Dumplings and stir-fried vegetables. As for alcohol...”
“No, never mind.”
I set down two coins, making it clear I didn’t want anyone tampering with the food. The serving boy wiped the table with a cloth and took the money with practiced ease.
“Thank you, sir. I’ll bring the meal right away.”
I quenched my thirst with cheap tea that had almost no scent or flavor, then looked out the window.
Unfamiliar faces drifted past between unfamiliar buildings.
Where had Soso noona gone?
I would have to find out after the meal. That broker, Yeon Jinwon or whatever his name was, and Jeongun Merchant Association...
“Hey, you there, mister.”
There were two farmers in the inn and I hadn’t even mentioned any names, but it was obvious who they were talking to.
I turned my head, cup still in hand.
One of the fools sitting by the back door was glaring at me with bloodshot eyes.
He had been sneaking looks at me ever since I walked into the inn, and apparently he’d decided I was easy enough to hassle.
That was the sort of work men like him did.
Drinking at inns in broad daylight, and when they saw someone who looked easy to push around, they’d pick a fight and shake a little money loose.
I hadn’t even been back home for a full day, and now I was getting tangled up with trash like this...
Goddammit.
How the hell had my hometown, Seochon, ended up like this? I couldn’t help letting out a sigh.