The Tomok Seonnyeo's Hammer Spectacle
On the open hill, the people wandering Cheolbang Street hit the jackpot with an unexpected spectacle—one sack of rice and two hammers. Unlike Cheong’s hometown, where people were glued to tiny screens watching clowns perform whether they were eating, sleeping, or breathing, spectacles were rare treasures in this primitive ancient world. So the light, almost weightless clangs of the hammer rang out, and the iron stake rose and fell in rhythm. The crowd’s eyes rose and fell with it too.
People in this era were far more sociable than modern folk, so newcomers would ask those already watching. “Whoa, looks like quite the show. What medicine are you selling? I’ve been feeling a bit off lately—might buy a bottle.”
“She’s not selling medicine. They say she’s the Tomok Seonnyeo.”
“Tomok Seonnyeo? What, is she going to build a house or something? Oh. She really is building a house. Wow, the way she swings that hammer, she must be good.”
“Is that real? Or is it a scam to sell medicine with a hollow hammer and wooden pegs?”
“The weight and sound are completely different. And she’s not selling medicine. They say she serves the Hegemon-King’s champion, and when the ironworker got suspicious, she started showing off like this.”
“Even the Hegemon-King’s champion would fall over in shock.”
“What medicine seller are you talking about? Whoa, look at that chest. Has to be at least ten pounds. Is she selling breast-enlargement pills? Get some for my wife.”
“She’s not a medicine peddler, she’s the Tomok Seonnyeo, the Greatest Carpenter of Henan. Wait, damn it. What is this? Why am I suddenly the medicine seller’s errand boy? Why is everyone asking me? And once I say it, listen— she’s not selling medicine! How many times do I have to repeat it!?”
Of course, it was only because she had such an approachable face that everyone kept grabbing her to ask.
Then Cheong struck the iron stake with force. The stake shot high into the sky. She lifted the eight-pound hammer overhead and brought it down in one clean motion.
BOOM!
A heavy vibration rolled through the ground. The iron stake sank completely into the frozen winter earth, leaving only its round head peeking above the surface like a shy mushroom.
The spectators’ eyes all bulged at once. They craned their necks, staring at the ground, wondering what exactly they had just witnessed and whether it was a divine technique a human could possibly perform.
Cheong clicked her tongue at the ironworker. “Tsk. Since I serve the Hegemon, it makes sense that I was known as the Greatest Carpenter of Henan. You still doubt me? Don’t you know that a doubting sickness is just terminal stupidity? If disaster strikes now, I won’t lift a finger.”
The ironworker rushed over and groped the stake embedded dead center in the hammer-shaped depression half an inch deep. The poor man began to tremble violently.
“Aigoo, aigoo! This lowly one’s eyes were dim and failed to recognize a divine person. Please, do not be angry with me.”
“Mm. It’s fine. The Hegemon says to tell you he’s properly warmed up now, so there’s no need to shake like that. You keep trembling and we’ll have an earthquake.”
“Aigoo, thank you, thank you!”
The ironworker slammed his forehead to the ground in a deep bow.
Hmm. A little bit guilty.
Cheong felt a twinge of conscience. Hiding her strength on purpose and then getting mad at him for not recognizing her was probably a bit much.
“Whatever. Ah, General! Yes, you like it? Yes. Yes. Then I’ll pay the price. Yes. Twenty silver taels? For this? Ah. Yes.”
Cheong carried on a one-woman conversation like a lunatic, then pulled a silver ingot from her pouch and set it down.
“Since the Hegemon likes it, I have to pay the proper price. That’s not too little, is it?”
“Aigoo, how could this lowly one possibly take money from the Hegemon? I will offer it as tribute—”
“You idiot! The Hegemon is not a bandit! If the Overlord says twenty taels, then it’s twenty taels! How dare you argue? When the Hegemon gives you something, you say ‘thank you’ and accept it!”
“Aigoo, this small one’s thoughts were shallow. Please quell your anger.”
Without another word, Cheong dragged the hammer behind her and left. The spectators immediately swarmed the ironworker—or rather, the hammer mark at his feet—to inspect it.
Whoa. It was driven in perfectly. There was no grip left to pull it out.
The Greatest Carpenter of Henan? You had to do something like this to earn that title? Couldn’t the Greatest Carpenter of Guangdong do the same? Wasn’t she the shaman who served the Hegemon-King’s champion? They said he possessed strength to lift mountains and spirit to overwhelm the world, and sure enough, she was swinging that heavy eight-pound hammer like a pair of chopsticks.
This was more than enough to achieve her goal. She felt a little sorry for the ironworker who had knelt, but since she had paid double the proper amount, she had more than compensated him for the humiliation.
Cheong left the area, hammer head scraping along the ground. Between her eye-catching multicolored robes, the talismans draped over her, and the loud scraping noise, it was inevitable that every eye would be drawn to her.
Wondering if she might do something entertaining again, the idle commoners with nothing to do during the winter slack season trailed after her in a long line.
With a crowd stuck to her tail like that, the place the Tomok Seonnyeo arrived at was a construction site where wooden framing was going up. She hadn’t searched for it on purpose; she had simply followed the sounds of hammering, sawing, and rhythmic “heave-ho” shouts using her superhuman hearing.
The carpenters building the house saw the swarm of people and froze, tools still in hand. What was going on? And why had some suspicious shaman come carrying a hammer? They stared blankly in her direction.
Cheong gave the hammer a light spin, then thunked it into the ground. She stood at a crooked angle with her palm resting on the end of the handle and spoke.
“Listen, friends. Short on hands? This lady is the Tomok Seonnyeo, Greatest Carpenter of Henan. I heard the Guangdong carpenters are so skilled that I came to learn a few things.”
“Carpenter? You don’t hold a hammer like an amateur, but what kind of carpenter dresses like that?”
“This lady is a carpenter, but also a divine maiden. My duty is to master all civil engineering under heaven.”
“But what does being a shaman have to do with carpentry—”
“Ahem! Did I not say civil engineering? ‘To’ means earth, ‘mok’ means wood. A carpenter joins earth and wood to create dwellings, so it’s like a shepherd of houses? Therefore, to benefit the world widely is Hongik—in short, something like that. Ah, yes, exactly. This lady will one day build a shrine for the Hegemon who shall embrace all under heaven.”
Did that sound incredibly forced just now? The carpenters’ heads tilted in unison. What kind of nonsense was this? Would it bring bad luck to the house they were building?
But they had no precedent for whether chasing away a shaman mid-construction would anger the local earth god. So Cheong added one more line.
“I don’t need daily wages. I just want to learn the work.”
A truly miraculous blessing! Free labor!
The carpenters all nodded at once.
Orthodox and unorthodox sects differed right from their names. While orthodox sects took the name of a region, a famous mountain, or gathered auspicious characters, the unorthodox ones inevitably chose ominous-sounding titles. This wasn’t because the founding ancestors of the black path gangs had all suffered from late puberty. Gangster groups naturally chose names that sounded tougher than everyone else’s, and when those same thugs pushed out rival organizations, swelled in size, and swallowed a large estate, a new black path gang was born. Therefore, among the unorthodox factions, having a suspicious and unsettling name was actually considered a compliment. After all, a name like that suggested they were no ordinary bunch.
Of course, the “pa” used by the black path was different from the “pa” used by orthodox sects. The orthodox version referred to Taoist-based sects like the Mt. Hua Sect or Jongnam Sect, while the unorthodox “pa” simply meant “our organization.”
In any case, although Gwangju had been tightly suppressed under the influence of the Gwangdong Jin Family, for three whole months—from the start of the Murim Competition until their return—the Jin family had been completely absent from the city. In that brief window, the Warring States era of the black path gangs had exploded into being. Now the three major black path factions—Salwol-pa, Gwangju Seonbang, and Geumjeokbang—held Gwangju in an iron grip.
Even after the Jin family returned, they were occupied with funerals and grief, leaving the situation as it was. The unorthodox factions were burning with determination to solidify their territories once and for all while the opportunity lasted.
The one currently under their gleaming scrutiny was, of course, the suddenly appeared unidentified carpenter-cum-shaman known as the Tomok Seonnyeo.
Lee Wang-chul, leader of Salwol-pa, was also paying close attention.
“What is that Tomok Seonnyeo bitch doing right now? It doesn’t look like she’s working on the Jin family construction.”
“From what I hear, she’s going around the various construction sites in Gwangju and working for free.”
Lee Wang-chul made a dumbfounded face.
“For free? Why?”
Cheong was good at any kind of physical labor. Whether it came from natural talent or simply her transcendent body that surpassed humans in strength, balance, and sensory acuity, she didn’t know.
“Hey, Kim. Set that straight, will you? Look at this guy—can’t even stand a post up properly. Look at the divine maiden over there. She just grabs it and it stands right up with a throb.”
“Well of course it stands with a throb if a woman grabs it. You expect it to throb for a man?”
Laughter erupted.
Cheong gave a small snort and said, “With a mouth that open, you really will say anything. Stand up? Stand what up? Want me to drive something in for you? I saw a stake as thick as my forearm rolling around earlier.”
“If you want to spend your life looking at the outhouse, go ahead and drive it in.”
“If I drive it in, I’ll be putting it in the pillar in front of you. What outhouse? Just wear thick cotton pants and change them twice a day.”
Carpenter Yeom’s face twisted. More laughter burst out. Having run out of comebacks, Yeom grumbled, “They said she was a divine maiden, but her mouth doesn’t tremble one bit.”
“With a face like that, of course it doesn’t. Teasing only works if you have the looks for it.”
Laughter spread once more.
The hardworking, quick-witted Tomok Seonnyeo had taken the entire Gwangju construction scene by storm in just five days.
She really was extraordinarily good at the work. She single-handedly performed tasks that normally required ten men, and that wasn’t simply a matter of saving manpower. Setting up one pillar required ten people to gather, time to match their rhythm, and even though everyone had their own assigned tasks, they still had to stop and help. Other work would be interrupted, some people would stand around while others worked, and the ones who had exerted themselves would then complain about back pain and rest…
When someone finished all that group labor alone with the strength of the Hegemon-King’s champion, the work speed increased far beyond what ten extra hands could achieve. Helping for a single day advanced completion by at least ten days.
So now, whenever the Tomok Seonnyeo appeared, the owners of every construction site would come running, begging her to please do some work and take their money.
“Enough of that. Is there a house raising its roof today? I’d like to learn how to set up a round roof.”
“Divine Maiden! We’re raising the roof this time! We’ll entrust you with an entire house this afternoon, so please work with us!”
“Oh. Sure. Where? The Bangseon family? Got it.”
What Cheong had been feeling lately was that carpentry might actually suit her temperament surprisingly well. The methods she learned in Nangnyeong differed from the very basics of joint-fitting, and since the land was so vast, every region’s carpenters had their own techniques.
“What? You join the wood like this? Won’t it shake later?”
“There are stone walls in front and back anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Why, how do they do it in Henan?”
“Like this?”
“Ooh. What is this? Incredible. Absolutely ingenious.”
The Henan style—using only wood and almost no nails, never iron nails—felt like an entirely new world to the Guangdong carpenters. In Guangdong, wood was hidden behind surfaces, so they simply hammered in huge spikes.
So whenever Cheong demonstrated Henan techniques, the Guangdong carpenters refused to stay quiet.
“I haven’t even taught this to my own son yet, but you apply glue right here…”
“We mix the pressing stone with yellow soil and drive it in deep like this. The floor collects water, so it won’t tilt later if you do it this way.”
“You’re going to notch the pillar? Aigoo, that means taking out all the bricks. Better do it like this instead. Bring the beams in pairs and set them together.”
“Ayu, then what do you use that space for? Isn’t it better to temporarily support it, cut it down, and fit the joints properly?”
“But what about the floor? What if we reverse it?”
“We still have to decide whether to go all the way to the blue stone or not.”
When Cheong asked the master carpenters about ways to extract only the materials without demolishing the house, they would discuss among themselves and brilliant ideas kept popping out one after another. It felt like a proper plan was finally starting to take shape.