Stolen Goods, Part 2
An abandoned Taoist temple on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan, long rumored to be haunted by ghosts.
The temple had sat empty for years, forgotten by the world—yet now its halls were thick with the scent of fresh grass and packed wall to wall with people.
Those people were the masters and craftsmen of sericulture, gathered from every corner of the Central Plains.
A peculiar tension hung over the temple where those sericulture masters and artisans filled every corner.
"This time we must succeed. There aren't many eggs left."
The craftsmen who had been abducted from all across the Central Plains bowed their heads with apologetic faces at Shintu Gal Ji-heung's words.
They had every reason to. This time, failure was not an option.
"We're sorry, Elder."
"We beg your pardon."
Among them, the oldest man lowered his head even further and spoke.
"H-how could we fail, Shintu Elder? We've gathered nearly every grass and leaf that grows at this time of year, so it's certain this time. This old Baek has taken special care."
"And that's not all. Soft ones, tough ones, even the stems—we've prepared every variety of tree and grass by type. We'll make it succeed this time, no matter what."
Just as Elder Baek, leader of the craftsmen, claimed, the large bamboo trays were piled high with countless kinds of leaves and grasses.
"That's right. We want to succeed and go home too."
"It'll work this time for sure."
They had been seized without warning and forced into this labor, yet it was well known that anyone who aided Shintu received rewards far beyond the help they gave.
Craftsmen who had devoted decades to sericulture clenched their fists with grim resolve, determined to succeed this time.
For them, this was a challenge of its own.
At first the craftsmen had been baffled.
Shintu had suddenly dragged them here and ordered them to raise a kind of silkworm they had never seen before.
But after several failures, the fighting spirit they had lost in their youth flared back to life. They banded together with one mind: they would raise this unknown silkworm and spin its thread no matter what.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the heap of gold bars Shintu Elder had tossed into a corner of the dilapidated temple.
They were craftsmen. They were not the sort who moved for mere money.
Though the gold did glitter rather beautifully.
"Well then, let's begin."
"Yes, Elder."
After the men burned the golden light stacked in the corner into their eyes one last time and steeled themselves, Shintu Gal Ji-heung gave the prepared leaves and grasses a final look and drew a small medicine box from his robes.
Click.
Inside the opened lid sat four large white orbs.
After so many failures the box was mostly empty. Shintu plucked one of the remaining orbs, set it on his palm, and immediately poured his inner force into it.
He waited a moment after feeding it energy. The orb slowly turned blue.
As it drank his inner force, the surface of the orb on Shintu's palm began to swell and bulge.
Sssk.
A short while later something tore through the bulging surface with a ripping sound, and two sharp fangs burst free.
The twin fangs pierced the shell; then the surface split open and a fat caterpillar as thick as a thumb crawled out.
"It's awake."
Snow-white, with a pair of distinctive yellow horns rising from its head.
The first thing the caterpillar did after emerging was lick its own body, still slick with fluid.
Once it had licked itself dry, Shintu quickly placed it on a tray.
Just as before, the caterpillar lifted its head on the tray and began surveying its surroundings.
As if searching for something.
Gulp.
The tension was thick enough to cut. The only sound inside the temple was the craftsmen swallowing hard.
Then it happened.
Suddenly the caterpillar began wriggling toward one side.
It crawled across the tray, undulating, and latched onto a particular leaf.
"Oh! D-did it work?!"
"Q-quiet!"
The craftsmen nearly cheered at the reaction they had never seen before, but Elder Baek's sharp warning snapped their mouths shut.
It was a new response, true—but the creature still hadn't eaten anything.
No matter how much it moved, if it refused to feed it would simply wither and die like every hatchling before it.
"What leaf is that, anyway?"
"It's white. Looks like silver vine."
Hands clammy with sweat, the craftsmen stared at the caterpillar clinging to the white silver-vine leaf and screamed silently inside.
Eat it! Please just eat it!
Eat!
But the hope of success lasted only a moment.
The caterpillar seemed to bring its mouth to the silver-vine leaf—then, same as always, it buried its head and went still.
Elder Baek shouted at once.
"Elder, another tray!"
He meant move it to the leaves on the next prepared tray.
No one but the man who had poured in his energy could touch the creature, so he was asking Shintu.
Apparently the first tray's leaves had failed.
"Understood."
At Elder Baek's words Shintu lifted the creature and transferred it from tray to tray, yet each time the caterpillar only raised its head, looked around, and buried it again—just like the first.
"Damn it! N-next tray!"
"Next!"
"Th-this is the last one…"
They went through every one of the dozen prepared trays. The creature never touched a single leaf.
The same reaction as always.
Shintu Gal Ji-heung's face turned grave.
"Another failure… Only three eggs left. This is bad…"
In desperation the craftsmen hurriedly plucked flower petals and other offerings and held them out, but the creature never stirred. Two days later it withered and died like all the others.
Another failure.
Geolhwang, the Beggar King, rummaged through the large pouch at his waist and popped a mealworm larva into his mouth.
Crunch.
A rich, nutty flavor flooded his mouth.
Mealworms truly had a unique taste.
Something like dried shrimp, yet after you finished chewing, a thick, savory oil lingered on the tongue and kept calling the flavor back.
Which was why he couldn't stop.
At first he had meant to eat only what he had been given.
It would have been beneath the dignity of the Beggar King to hang around the Tang Family's apothecary just to beg for more.
Even the emperor of beggars drew the line at panhandling from the Nine Great Sects or the Seven Great Clans.
But somehow they had known he would return. The moment he loitered nearby on the off chance, a Tang Family warrior came rushing out.
"We greet Geolhwang, one of the Three Emperors!"
"H-hey, keep it down, all of you. Quiet. So, what is it?"
Startled that the thunderous shout might reach other ears, he had just quieted the man when the warrior held out a large pouch.
"Young Master So-ryong and Lady Hwa-eun said to be sure to give you this if you came back…"
"Hm? What is it?"
"Dried mealworms. If you need more, just say the word and we'll bring them anytime."
"Khh… Ahem… Those youngsters sure know how to show proper respect to their elders in the martial world."
Remembering the moment he had received the mealworms again, Geolhwang reached into the pouch once more.
They were running low; he had to dig deep to find any.
He was just thinking he would have to drop by the Tang Family apothecary again soon when an irritating presence approached.
"Elder Brother. Hehe…"
"Ah, that bastard's back again."
His sworn younger brother, Shintu Gal Ji-heung, had come looking for him once more.
Geolhwang had already handed over lists of sericulture masters from every corner of the Central Plains several times at the man's request, yet here he was again.
Geolhwang tossed the mealworm he held into his mouth and asked irritably.
He already knew the fellow had kidnapped most of the people on those lists, stuffed them into a ruined temple, and was trying to produce Heavenly Silk.
"What now?! After kidnapping that many and locking them in a ruined temple, still not enough?"
Gal Ji-heung waved both hands frantically, face serious.
"K-kidnap? Elder Brother! Someone hears that and they'll think I'm a human trafficker."
"You little—! What you're doing right now is no different from human trafficking!"
"Come on, Elder Brother, you know my situation. It's because of the precepts. I'll send every one of them home with generous pay."
"Honestly… Once a thief, always a thief."
"Eheh… There you go again. Enough scolding your little brother—let's wet our throats."
With shameless ease Gal Ji-heung sidled up beside him and set out a wine jug.
Geolhwang pretended he couldn't refuse and sat up properly.
The man had clearly come to ask another favor, but after eating the oily mealworm larvae Geolhwang had been craving a cool drink anyway.
Mealworms turned out to be surprisingly greasy and paired perfectly with a crisp cup of wine.
Glug-glug-glug.
He sniffed the fragrance pouring into the bamboo cup—bamboo-leaf green wine, the kind his younger brother had brought.
Breathing in the scent of his favorite bamboo-leaf wine, Geolhwang asked,
"So, what is it this time? Things not going well?"
His younger brother scratched his head and answered.
"I think I got something wrong."
"Got something wrong?"
"Yeah, Elder Brother. I gathered the sericulture craftsmen because I needed to hatch Heavenly Silkworms and spin the thread. But the silkworms they raise and Heavenly Silkworms are completely different. I was thinking about it all wrong from the start."
"I needed someone who knows insects, not someone who knows silkworms."
Gulp.
"Khh… Nice."
The greasy film in his mouth dissolved as the bamboo-leaf wine his brother had poured slid down his throat.
Geolhwang scooped another handful of mealworms from the pouch, tossed five or six into his mouth, and said,
Crunch.
"So you want me to find someone who knows insects well?"
"Hehe… Something like that, yeah? But last time and every time I see you, what's that you're eating?"
Of course it was another request for an insect expert.
If the man had brought roasted duck like last time it might have been different, but a single jug of bamboo-leaf wine felt a little thin. Just as that thought crossed his mind—
"What is this? A bug? Elder Brother, has panhandling been rough lately? Why are you eating bugs?"
Gal Ji-heung held up one of the mealworms Geolhwang had been eating, eyes wide.
Looking at the clueless fellow who was staring at him with pity, Geolhwang smiled.
"You little fool, try one. That is one of the greatest delicacies under heaven."
"This thing?"
Wearing an expression of pure disbelief, his sworn brother Gal Ji-heung stared at the mealworm for a long time.
Then he squeezed his eyes shut and popped it into his mouth.
Crunch.
His face, twisted at first, gradually smoothed out. By the end his eyes were round with shock.
"W-wait, why is this so good?"
The man started snatching mealworms from Geolhwang's hand and gobbling them one after another.
Geolhwang clenched the remaining mealworms tightly and yelled.
They had said he could come anytime for more, but dropping by too often was embarrassing—and now his little brother was mindlessly stuffing them into his mouth at lightning speed.
"Y-you little—eat slowly! We have to make them last…"
"Come on, Elder Brother, what's there to save about bugs…"
"You brat, do you have any idea how hard these are to get?"
"Anyway, how did you get them? Tell me so I can go steal some too. They're ridiculously good."
"You little—again?!"
Just as he roared at the request to be told where he could go steal them, the face of the youngster who had first introduced him to the taste of mealworms floated up in his mind.
That boy was an eccentric who wandered around with a massive spiritual beast—an Azure-Spotted Centipede—wrapped around his body.
Moreover, he knew that even something as delicious as these mealworms could kill a man.
And that was not all. According to recent talk from martial artists who had stayed with the Tang Family, a Golden-Haired Phoenix was flying around inside their compound as well.
On top of that, word had come that the boy had even captured a Human-Faced Spider from the Namgung Family of Mount Huang. When it came to insects and spiritual beasts, he was almost certainly an expert.
In fact, he was probably the person who knew insects better than anyone else in the entire Central Plains—exactly the man Gal Ji-heung was looking for.
"Hmm…"
Geolhwang was considering what greasy feast he might scrounge in exchange for the information when he looked at Gal Ji-heung.
What met his eyes was the familiar sight of a hand diving into his pouch.
"Hey! You bastard!"
Geolhwang shot his foot out and stomped on Gal Ji-heung's hand the instant it entered the pouch mouth, then bellowed.
"Now you're stealing from your own sworn elder brother's pouch?!"
"Come on, just share a few."
"Hah… And to think I was sitting here thinking of an insect expert for a guy like this…"
"Oh?! There is someone? Someone who knows insects well?"
Even while answering, Gal Ji-heung's hand kept wriggling. Geolhwang pressed down harder and nodded.
"There might not be a single soul in the Central Plains who knows insects better than that kid. And your Heavenly Silkworm is a spiritual beast too, isn't it?"
"He's already raising several spiritual beasts. Perfect for you."
"Ooooh! Who is it?!"
At Gal Ji-heung's eager question, Geolhwang smiled.
"First lay out two roast ducks, then we'll talk."
And so the bargaining between a beggar and a thief began.